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The fight was lost:
The head of the German EY section,
Hubert Barth
, had long classified Wirecard as a high-risk customer - but did not draw any conclusions.
Photo: Michael Proeck for EY
The Wirecard scandal apparently claims its next victim.
Hubert Barth, head of the auditing and advisory conglomerate in Germany since 2016, wants to retire and switch to another position within the EY group.
Manager magazin learned this from financial circles.
The "Financial Times" first reported on the personnel change at the EY top.
The responsible bodies are currently still in session.
A successor is still unknown.
Just yesterday, EY announced the reorganization of its units in Western Europe.
EY had checked the Wirecard balance sheets since 2009 and certified them without restrictions despite numerous warning signals.
Ever since the "Financial Times" reporter Dan McCrum set fire to the "House of Wirecard" in a series of articles in 2015 and a handful of hedge funds had bet on price falls, Wirecard has been a risk client at EY.
One of the consequences of this was that the test partners no longer made any decisions that Barth would not have been involved in.
Still, Barth never pulled the rip cord.
He wanted rest and he wanted growth.
In the period between 2015 and 2018, when the Wirecard machine started to run really hot, EY landed numerous large Dax mandates.
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