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Anxious times Germany's development industry is being scrutinised by public prosecutor Wolfgang Schaupensteiner. Paul Yandall, in Berlin, hears the views of Frank Billand, the chairman of Difa, whose own supervisory executive Hans-Günter Seckerdieck was asked to leave in July
Frankfurt's public prosecutor is relentless. Last week he put the city's development industry under the spotlight. A few days later the net had covered Germany. Now he says there is a direct link between the irregularities in his own country and London.
"It goes all the way to London," says Wolfgang Schaupensteiner, leader of the investigation. "After all, Europe is a small place."
The probes have caused a stir in the German development community. Even those who have yet to be called by Schaupensteiner are feeling the strain of having their professions exposed to scrutiny and doubt.
Standing outside Berlin's half-occupied Ludwig Erhard Haus building- an armadillo-shaped testament to the state of the depressed German property market - Dr Frank Billand is, well, most frank.
At first, the imposingly tall board chairman of German open-ended fund Difa - short for Deutsche Immobilien Fonds AG - is aristocratic in his dismissal of a question about the possible irregularities in his country's property development industry. "Did you not have this thing in Spain? It is not a German thing. This can happen anywhere," he says.
But just a few moments later, he is more conciliatory: "Anything that affects investors' confidence is a concern for us. Nothing has been proven, these are allegations, but it is not what we want to see."
It is a sign of the tension in the country's development industry that one terse reply to a reporter attending Difa's summit for property journalists in Berlin is so quickly amended.
There is plenty for Billand to be concerned about. Dozens of fund managers, bankers, architects and property professionals have now been linked to a series of investigations.
The industry has not been caught out by any lack of proper internal procedures, he says. He adds that Difa has reviewed its own procedures even though, he reiterates, "we are not involved".
Perception is everything
Well, none of Difa's present employees is being investigated or been accused of taking backhanders. But perception is everything, and Billand...