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Important Wirecard witness does not want to testify

2020-11-26T10:40:39.571Z


The business lawyer Frank Stahl is considered to be one of the central figures of the Wirecard scandal - and is due to appear before the Bundestag investigative committee on Thursday. But he refuses.


Wirecard headquarters

Photo: Peter Kneffel / dpa

In the parliamentary committee of inquiry (PUA) on the Wirecard scandal, another witness wants to evade questioning for the time being.

Frank Stahl, partner of the commercial law firm Baker Tilly in Munich and longtime Wirecard consultant, is actually supposed to testify to the committee this Thursday - but his lawyer is now trying to prevent that.

In a recent letter to the committee that SPIEGEL has received, Stahl's legal representative argues that his client has the right to refuse to testify;

In addition, he was obliged to maintain secrecy in order not to violate his legal professional secrecy.

"The risk of exposing himself to criminal investigations here is unreasonable for my client," the letter says. 

Stahl is considered one of the central, external figures in Wirecard's rise to a billion-dollar company and a member of the Dax German share index.

He audited Wirecard's balance sheets for 2009 and 2010 for the auditor RP Richter, and later RP Richter was merged with Baker Tilly, where Stahl works to this day.

There he advised Wirecard on acquisitions in Asia and South Africa, the purchase of Citigroup's prepaid card business and the takeover of the Chinese payment processor AllScore.  

Many of these acquisitions are considered suspicious, especially that of the Indian payment processor Hermes.

Wirecard had once paid around 340 million euros for it, although just a few weeks earlier a Mauritius-based fund called EMIF 1A had acquired Hermes for around a ninth of the sum.

Wirecard managers and business partners presumably benefited from the deal and the associated price explosion.

Baker Tilly confirms that he advised Wirecard, but does not comment in detail. 

As the current letter goes on to say, Wirecard's insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé cannot release Stahl from his duty of confidentiality.

Last week, Jaffé released four representatives from the auditor EY, who had approved Wirecard's falsified balance sheets for years, from their duty of confidentiality.

They too should testify on Thursday before the committee of inquiry, but Jaffé's decision is not enough for EY.  

And Stahl would not accept them either, as his lawyer makes clear in the letter.

Jaffé could only speak for Wirecard AG, but not for other companies and organs of the group that were also advised by Stahl.

Stahl's interrogation should be postponed until it has been clarified whether he will be released from confidentiality "by the other earlier organs".

The committee of inquiry should cancel the appointment on Thursday and set another. 

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Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2020-11-26

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