The German government is taking its first steps after the billions scandal surrounding the DAX group Wirecard. The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Finance will terminate the contract with the German Accounting Office (DPR). According to media reports, the DPR entrusted “essentially only one employee” with the complex inspection of Wirecard.
The DPR, which is organized under private law, controls the balance sheets on behalf of the state and, according to the ministries, has failed in the case of Wirecard, writes the “Bild am Sonntag”. At the DPR, no comment was initially available.
According to the DPR, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) had advised in February 2019 that there were inconsistencies in Wirecard’s 2018 half-year results. “We reacted immediately and arranged for an audit of the balance sheet at the DPR in mid-February 2019,” said a spokeswoman. The Bafin was not responsible for the audit. The DPR alone is responsible at the first stage. The test there took so long.
According to a report by the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”, the inspection agency, also known as the “balance police”, has only a small number of staff. In the past 16 months, only one single employee had been entrusted with the complex and complex inspection.
According to FAS, the division of tasks between Bafin and DPR is also at the center of the EU Commission’s hard criticism of Germany in the Wirecard case. The EU is now having the European financial regulators ESMA review the actions of German financial regulators in the balance sheet scandal.
The questionable division of tasks between Bafin and the DPR is also at the center of criticism on the part of the EU Commission against Germany in the Wirecard case, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” continued. The EU is now having the role of German financial regulators in the balance sheet scandal reviewed by the European securities regulator Esma.
Wirecard filed for bankruptcy this week after the company had to admit that the EUR 1.9 billion in cash on the balance sheet that it said was in Asian bank accounts could not be found. Bafin President Felix Hufeld described the events as a “shame” for Germany. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) has announced a reform of German financial supervision as a consequence of the accounting scandal.
Those: Apa / Ag.
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