The special auditor from KPMG at the former Dax group Wirecard indirectly accused the company of covering up before the Bundestag investigative committee.
The
Wirecard scandal
severely shook the confidence of many investors in German financial regulators and auditors.
For years,
EY
had
dutifully
audited the payment service provider's financial statements.
During a special audit,
KPMG
found indications early on that something was wrong in Aschheim near Munich.
EY nevertheless refuses to testify.
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Berlin - The auditor who was responsible for the special audit on balance sheet fraud at the former
Dax
* company
Wirecard
* has made clear allegations against
Wirecard
.
"In the course of the investigation, we encountered significant hurdles and obstacles which were due to the lack of willingness to cooperate on the part of
Wirecard
," said
Alexander Geschonneck
from the auditing company
KPMG
on Thursday in
the Bundestag
investigation committee
.
Some documents were made available several months late, interview dates were postponed and access to IT systems was not made possible.
The result was nevertheless clear:
Wirecard
did not provide sufficient evidence of the existence of customer relationships and the revenues allegedly generated from them
for business with third parties in Asia
.
These deals are said to have made up
more than half of
Wirecard's
sales and a large part of profit.
However, Geschonneck reported that there was insufficient evidence of the amount of sales, account balances or incoming payments.
Wirecard: KPMG special audit really got the scandal rolling
The auditing company KPMG was
commissioned
with the
special audit
in October 2019
after several reports of irregularities at the tech group.
Your investigation report really got the scandal rolling.
In the summer, the now insolvent Dax group then admitted air bookings of 1.9 billion euros.
Fabio De Masi, an MP for the leftwing Die Linke party, urged the German government to “act immediately” and to stop commissioning EY with taxpayer-funded mandates until potential criminal misconduct by the firm has been ruled out.
- Fabio De Masi (Member of the Bundestag) (@FabioDeMasi) November 26, 2020
The company, once traded as a German technology hope, made losses for years according to the current state of the investigation.
The Munich
public prosecutor's office
assumes that fictitious profits have been reported since 2015.
According to their calculations, banks and investors alone lost more than three billion euros.
In total, the
creditors have registered
claims of more than 12.4 billion euros.
According to information from Merkur.de *,
Wirecard
insolvency administrator
Michael Jaffé
has
generated
around 500 million euros from the sale of
parts
of the company or the technology platform.
This should leave the creditors with the greatest part of their demands.
Wirecard: Auditor EY wants to avoid giving a statement
The longstanding
Wirecard
auditor
EY
, however, continues to remain silent.
You will make use of your right to refuse to testify, said EY.
The reason given was that one was not released from the obligation to maintain confidentiality.
In Berlin, however, this view causes bewilderment.
(dpa / utz)
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen Digital editorial network.