In the Wirecard accounting scandal, an investigative committee is to clarify what went wrong from today.
Was the company handled with kid gloves by the authorities?
The
Wirecard
accounting scandal
now ends up in front of a committee of inquiry.
Federal Finance Minister
Olaf Scholz
and Economics Minister
Peter
Altmaier
have to testify.
The MPs also want to clarify whether government agencies may have been too
lenient
with the company
Berlin - The
eagerly awaited committee of inquiry into the spectacular accounting scandal surrounding the former Dax group
Wirecard
will start in the
Bundestag
on Thursday (3 p.m.)
.
* In the coming months, the MPs want to find out, among other things, whether the German fintech company, an up-and-coming stock market star and financial group, was handled with kid gloves by the supervisory authorities despite indications of irregularities.
The now insolvent
Dax
group had admitted air bookings of 1.9 billion euros in the summer.
As a service provider for cashless payments at checkouts and on the Internet, the company sat at the interface between merchants and credit card companies - in a highly competitive market.
Wirecard: damage of over three billion euros
According to the current status of the investigation,
Wirecard
made
losses for years.
The Munich public prosecutor's office assumes that the company has shown fake profits since 2015.
More than three billion euros could be lost.
The financial supervisory authority
Bafin
and the auditing company EY are criticized in the case.
The scandal reveals "how the longing for a fintech" Made in Germany "has blinded the federal government, supervisors and the state government of Bavaria," said the chairman of the
left
in the committee,
Fabio De Masi
, before the start.
Central questions in the political processing of the case will be when exactly the federal government knew about irregularities and whether they did too little about it.
How could it be that 1.9 billion euros disappear from a company's balance sheet without the financial supervisory authority noticing anything, asks @FabioDeMasi (Die Linke), #Investigation Committee #Wirecard.
pic.twitter.com/um8B5p14M1
- ZDF Morgenmagazin (@morgenmagazin) October 8, 2020
In
response to the scandal,
Finance Minister
Olaf Scholz
and Justice Minister
Christine Lambrecht
(both
SPD
) have already presented an action plan for reforming financial supervision.
The opposition, however, accuses him of trying to divert attention from his own failure as the chief financial regulator.
He is hiding behind auditors and alleged loopholes in the law.
Wirecard: In addition to Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, Chancellor Angela Merkel is also threatened with a summons
It is considered certain that Scholz will be summoned as a witness in the investigative committee - as is economic minister
Peter Altmaier
(CDU) and even Chancellor
Angela Merkel
, who had worked
hard
for
Wirecard
on a trip to China last autumn
.
A committee of inquiry has more rights than ordinary Bundestag committees.
He can question witnesses and experts and request inspection of the files.
It is currently controversial who should head the committee of inquiry.
According to parliamentary practice, the leadership of the
AfD
parliamentary
group, which has nominated its financial politician
Kay Gottschalk
, would be responsible.
However, it remains to be seen whether the other committee members will vote for him.
Everyone should decide for themselves, stressed the chairman of the Union in the committee,
Matthias Hauer
.
It is crucial that the committee pushes the education - and the AfD has hardly been noticed so far.
(dpa) * Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen Digital editorial network.