I’m assuming they have to say this from a legal perspective. In reality what they are saying is “we don’t know how much the legal fees will come to, could be less, could be more. However, once we have proper accounting, if there is money left over this will support CCC”

I’m not familiar with German governance for quasi not for profits, but I suspect the idea that funds are conditional for one specific purpose probably breaches governance, and returning funds to donors if certain conditions are/are not met could be problematic from a tax point of view. I know this would be the case in other European jurisdictions with which I am more familiar.

And here (from another HN link I just browsed) is other work CCC is doing, his time exposing a major security flaw in VW Audi Group security policies: https://cyberinsider.com/vw-suffers-major-breach-exposing-lo...