For EY, there is a lot at stake – the potential financial damage from recourse claims could be immense. “You have to fear that lenders will lose their stake in the bankruptcy process. That would then have to be added to the damage of the shareholders. Ultimately, this can mean a total loss of several billion, which you will want to claim, ”estimates Liebscher.
Audit firms have liability insurance for such cases. However, insurers do not have to pay if they can show their customers that they have acted with intent. Clarifying this in court in the Wirecard case may take years – a time when EY’s reputation could suffer massively.
Reputational damage is a major risk for an accounting firm for which client trust is paramount. Because even if only individual EY employees were found to have misconduct in the Wirecard case, the scandal could affect the entire German EY company and even EY Global, especially since the Wirecard case has also met with a great response internationally and many investors come abroad.
In the past few years, EY has managed to gain one prominent company after the other as an auditor in the course of the rotation of its auditors – including large financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank. Now EY is involved in a scandal in the highly regulated financial sector.
julia.schmitt[at]finance-magazin.de
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