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Ex-Wirecard boss Markus Braun (left), ex-chief controller Thomas Eichelmann: WhatsApp Brauns at night to the chairman of the supervisory board
Photo: imago images
No fooling around, but clearly describing the problems.
These were the requirements of the Wirecard supervisory board for an important ad hoc announcement that the board of directors of the group around Markus Braun had to address on April 21, 2020.
KPMG auditors had previously disclosed preliminary results of a special audit to the group.
This should finally put an end to the allegations of cosmetic accounting, which, however, failed thoroughly.
Braun resisted the inspectors' specifications and the audit results: the report was wrong, he wrote supervisory board chairman Thomas Eichelmann in a nocturnal Whatsapp message.
And further: "The supervisory board is personally liable if it allows values to be destroyed by the publication of a false ad hoc or a false report."
Eichelmann brought this clash to the parliamentary committee of inquiry on Thursday evening.
The politicians wanted to know from Eichelmann how he reacted to this attempt at intimidation.
"I wasn't impressed," emphasized Eichelmann.
However, he could not prevent Wirecard's ad hoc announcement from being much more positive and harmless than requested.
No mention of the hurdles that KPMG encountered during the audit.
This not only caused problems for Braun with the supervisory board, but later also a complaint from the banking supervisory authority Bafin - on suspicion of market manipulation.
"Not another unfinished action"
In his nearly five-hour appearance in front of the MPs, Eichelmann gave an insight into his time as a member of the supervisory board of the now collapsed group.
He had been a member of the committee since June 2019 and was at the top from January 2020.
During his term of office, the decision was made to commission KPMG with a special audit.
The investor Softbank had pushed for this.
The inspectors laid down the conditions for the investigation: "It was important to me that the supervisory board is the client and that KPMG reports to the supervisory board," emphasized Eichelmann, so that the management board could not simply end the audit in between.
That happened often enough in the past.
"I wanted to make sure we didn't have an unfinished action again."
There have been attempts to achieve this - apparently from different directions.
Braun proposed to interrupt the KPMG investigation and only continue after the EY final certificate, said Eichelmann.
Similar signals have also come from some EY auditors.
In the meantime, a devastating impression emerged: that EY was trying to dictate the conditions for issuing the attestation to the company.
Interruption of the special test "not appropriate"
Eichelmann apparently quickly fended off Braun's request.
"I just didn't think it was appropriate," said the former chief controller.
When dealing with EY, he chose a slightly more cumbersome solution.
After consulting with a lawyer, she wrote to the auditing company: According to her understanding, the responsible auditor had "put an end to ongoing auditing activities by KPMG as a prerequisite for issuing an attestation in the room".
This email forced EY to show its colors.
"I wanted to force a clear position," said Eichelmann.
He got it.
In the answer from the auditors, there was no longer any question of terminating the KPMG investigation.
Instead, EY made it clear that the audit could only be completed on time if all required documents and receipts were presented - including evidence of escrow accounts in Asia.
EY and the back and forth with the KPMG special test
This Friday, EY auditors will have to answer questions from MPs on the committee of inquiry and explain how this back and forth came about.
Wirecard's trust accounts should actually be close to two billion euros - money from the Asian business that the company processed through partner companies.
Since KPMG could not prove the existence of the sums, Wirecard did not get the acquittal they had hoped for in the special audit.
A few months later, the EY certification also failed because of the billion hole.
This triggered the company's bankruptcy and investigations by the Munich public prosecutor's office.
This accuses the former top management of fraud, infidelity and market manipulation.
A development that Eichelmann did not consider possible: "I expected improvements to be made from the special test, but no fraud."
He later admitted that, above all, he had not seen through the Wirecard business with partners in Asia.
"Otherwise I would have understood that it doesn't exist or that parts of it don't exist."