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Wirecard: Federal Court of Justice releases EY auditors from secrecy

2021-02-11T09:37:55.338Z


EY's auditors are allowed to testify before the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Wirecard scandal. The court order is of fundamental importance for white collar crime proceedings.


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Group representation of EY in Zurich

Photo: Arnd Wiegmann / REUTERS

The first appearance of a leading EY auditor in the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Wirecard affair was disappointing for the MPs.

Last autumn, the witness Christian Orth gave a lengthy lecture on the rights and obligations of his profession, but he blocked all specific questions about the collapsed financial service provider Wirecard, which had been supervised by the large auditing firm.

His argument: He must be released from his duty of confidentiality by all board and supervisory board members involved, not just by the insolvency administrator.

But these are not the case.

Many parliamentarians believed that EY deliberately wanted to remain silent because their auditors had certified the Wirecard degree for years and only refused to give the certificate in June 2020.

They sentenced the witness to a fine of 1000 euros.

EY sued this penalty because the company wanted to force a decision of principle.

Now, according to SPIEGEL information, he has got it.

In its decision published on Thursday, the Federal Court of Justice stated that the liquidator's release from confidentiality is sufficient.

The previously unclear jurisprudence has thus been clarified.

The auditor had no legal certainty

In their reasoning, the judges agreed with EY in their assessment that there had been no legal certainty so far.

Therefore, they also lifted the fine of 1000 euros against EY examiner Orth by the parliamentary committee of inquiry.

"Since a supreme court decision on the relevant legal issue has not yet been made and there are in particular divergent decisions, the applicant cannot be criticized for his behavior," write the BGH judges in their reasoning, which SPIEGEL has received.

At EY, the decision is relieved.

"We have always emphasized that we are helping to clarify the facts in the Wirecard case, but that we need a legally secure and effective release from our obligation of confidentiality," explains a spokesman.

EY has fully supported the investigations of the competent authorities and Parliament from the start and continued to do so.

Judgment of fundamental importance for white collar crime proceedings

The legal representative of EY, Björn Gercke, emphasizes the legal historical significance of today's decision.

"This is an important decision with a fundamental message for the entire profession," he says.

"The decision does not only apply to statements before parliamentary committees of inquiry, but in all future white-collar crime proceedings." There it had repeatedly come about that auditors had refused to testify.

The committee of inquiry, which will continue its interviewing of witnesses on Thursday, should now quickly come to an agreement to reload and question the EY examiners.

They hope that this will clarify the question of how the positive attestations for business degrees came about by 2018.

In recent years there have been repeated critical reports on possible balance sheet manipulation by the Wirecard management board, both from critical investors and the media such as the Financial Times and SPIEGEL.

The MPs want to know from the EY witnesses why they have not found sufficient evidence of falsification of accounts for many years, despite this information.

It was only in June 2020 that they were able to discover that around 1.9 billion euros were missing from Wirecard's balance sheet and refused to issue the certificate.

The company in Aschheim near Munich then went bankrupt and caused the biggest financial scandal in German post-war history.

EY had apologized to its customers for this.

"Many people believe that the Wirecard fraud should have been exposed earlier, and we understand that completely," wrote global EY boss Carmine Di Sibio last year.

In this letter he affirmed how seriously the allegations against the company were taken.

"Although we succeeded in exposing the fraud, we regret that it was not discovered earlier."

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Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-02-11

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