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According to the district court ruling: Wirecard shareholders could go away empty

2022-11-23T14:14:28.994Z


22,000 shareholders are demanding damages after the Wirecard insolvency. All of them could now be left with their claims after a court ruling: According to this, they are not creditors at all.


Enlarge image

Wirecard lettering on the company headquarters at that time (2020): Shareholders are demanding a total of seven billion euros.

Photo: Peter Kneffel / dpa

The shareholders of the insolvent payment service provider Wirecard are left empty-handed after a judgment by the Munich I Regional Court.

They are not considered creditors and could therefore not assert their claims for damages as a claim against insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé, said judge Susanne Lukauer.

Whether they were deceived by the company is irrelevant.

The fund company Union Investment had sued.

With the verdict, Jaffé could dismiss a large part of the claims against the insolvent payment processor.

Around 22,000 shareholders are demanding seven billion euros.

Banks, social security funds and other Wirecard creditors have filed claims of over 3.3 billion euros.

After all, Jaffé made a good one billion euros with the sale of the valuable parts of the company.

However, the fundamental question of whether and under what circumstances shareholders can become creditors should ultimately only be clarified by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH).

"The verdict is disappointing for investors and shareholders, as these investors were also cheated by Wirecard," said a Union Investment spokesman.

The verdict is not surprising.

It is a precedent that must be clarified by the Supreme Court.

Union Investment is examining which legal remedies will be filed.

Judge Lukauer said classifying the claims of shareholders as insolvency claims was “incompatible with the basic values ​​of insolvency law”.

During the negotiations at the beginning of October, Union Investment argued that the fund company would never have bought Wirecard shares if the Management Board had truthfully informed about the company's situation.

The judge made it clear that, in her view, it didn't matter.

Union Investment decided to buy Wirecard shares and thus invest in equity.

"But she was not deceived about this form of investment," says the verdict.

When companies go bankrupt, owners only get a chance if all creditors are satisfied – in practice, almost never.

Jaffé's lawyer explained at the hearing in early October that the recognition of shareholder claims would be a "perverse result" of the insolvency proceedings, which are intended to protect creditors.

You would get two thirds less.

"So you foot the bill."

It's not the first setback for shareholders.

In May, the same district court had already declared the Wirecard balance sheets for the years 2017 and 2018 to be void.

The dividend resolutions for the two years also became obsolete.

This would allow Jaffé, who obtained the verdict, to reclaim the dividends for the two years from shareholders.

In total, this is about 47 million euros.

The lawsuit was based on the alleged bogus bookings with which Wirecard managers are said to have inflated the balance sheets by invented billions.

Wirecard reported high profits totaling more than 600 million euros in 2017 and 2018.

According to the investigations of the Munich public prosecutor's office, these profits actually did not exist.

The trial against Markus Braun starts on December 8th

Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun will have to answer to a criminal case from December 8th.

The Greater Criminal Chamber at the Munich I Regional Court has initially scheduled 100 days of trial until 2024.

The public prosecutor's office has accused Braun and two other former Wirecard managers of suspected commercial gang fraud.

Braun has been in custody since July 2020.

The maximum sentence for particularly serious cases of fraud is ten years imprisonment.

The economic criminal proceedings are likely to be one of the largest in German history.

The company from Aschheim near Munich, which had risen to the leading index Dax, collapsed a good two years ago after an alleged billion sum in trust accounts turned out to be non-existent.

Sol/Reuters

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2022-11-23

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