The Wirecard insolvency 2020 is one of the biggest economic scandals in the Federal Republic. The top floor of the Munich company is said to have booked bogus transactions in the billions over the years. In Munich, therefore, a criminal case against the former head of the company Markus Braun. EY had been Wirecard’s auditor for over a decade and was still signing the financial statements even as media reports of accounting irregularities were mounting.
The auditor supervisory authority Apas has now imposed sanctions on the auditors of the consulting company employed at Wirecard. When examining the financial statements of the former payment service provider in the years 2016 to 2018, Apas sees breaches of professional duty as proven, she announced on Monday. The sanctions were directed against the auditing company itself and five auditors.
According to Apas, EY has to pay a fine of 500,000 euros. In addition, she is not allowed to carry out any statutory audits for companies of public interest for two years, including certain banks and insurance companies as well as capital market-oriented, i.e. listed companies (more here). These are so-called new mandates, said the Apas. Existing mandates are excluded. Individual auditors were fined between EUR 23,000 and EUR 300,000, according to the auditing authority.
When asked by AFP on Monday, EY said it had been informed by Apas about the completion of the investigation, but did not yet know the details of the decisions. “We will review these carefully once they have been finalized and sent to us.”
With a view to the Wirecard scandal, the company was purified: “We regret that the collusive fraud at Wirecard was not uncovered earlier, and we have learned important lessons from the case.” Collusive means the unauthorized cooperation of several participants. EY Germany is “a different company” today. Since 2020, “comprehensive measures” have been taken “to strengthen audit quality and risk management”.
