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The Wirecard scandal is getting bigger and bigger.

Because not only employees of the financial supervisory authority Bafin traded cheerfully with the shares of the fraudulent company, also the head of the auditor supervision Apas bought and sold papers when his agency was already investigating.

Apas boss Ralf Bose admitted that on Friday night, according to participants in the Bundestag investigative committee.

Accordingly, he bought the shares on April 28, 2020 and sold them again on May 20.

At the beginning of May, the supervisory authority initiated formal professional supervision proceedings against the Wirecard auditors from EY.

Previously, preliminary investigations were running.

According to Bose's statement, the opposition demanded his resignation.

The new findings also increase the pressure on Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU).

The supervision of the auditors is ultimately subordinate to his ministry.

Altmaier said he was “strange” about Bose's admission.

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He would have wished that a committee of inquiry had not been required to come to this conclusion and establish this fact, he said.

"We will talk to those involved and we will check very carefully whether the applicable regulations have been complied with and whether it is necessary to draw conclusions from them." However, he would ask for your understanding that in this case too, "take care before rushing decisions".

This is a "huge lack of instinct"

"Mr. Altmaier must finally bring his area up to date," said FDP finance politician Florian Toncar.

Its ministry must be accused of having only one completely unsuitable set of rules for the Apas to prevent conflicts of interest and insider trading.

And not even that has been controlled in any way by the ministry.

In the private share transactions with Wirecard shares just at the time when the own authority was investigating the company's auditor, it was at least a "huge lack of instinct", said Toncar.

Until the day before, he could not have imagined that something like this would be possible in Germany.

The Apas now need a fresh start at the top.

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Matthias Hauer, chairman of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the investigative committee, made no secret of his astonishment at the events in an authority of the CDU ministry: “That Apas boss Bose traded Wirecard shares during an ongoing professional procedure against EY auditors is strong stuff.

Such behavior cannot remain without consequences for him personally, ”he wrote on the short message service Twitter.

On April 28, the stock exchange price of Wirecard crashed after the auditing company KPMG had revealed in a special report that there was no evidence of the existence of alleged customer relationships and the sales generated by the up-and-coming tech group.

According to participants, Bose stated before the committee of inquiry that he believed in Wirecard's business model.

Whether it was due to the opening of the formal proceedings against EY that he sold the shares again after a short time remained open at first.

The EY auditors had approved the balance sheets of the former Dax group Wirecard for years.

The now insolvent company admitted air bookings of almost two billion euros in June.

The group is said to have reported fictitious profits since 2015.

Scope of the KPMG report not recorded?

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The left-wing party's financial policy spokesman, Fabio De Masi, believes it is “unbelievable” that the head of the auditor's supervision was dealing with Wirecard shares in a preliminary investigation.

The Apas justified their long-term inaction towards EY by saying that they wanted to wait for the KPMG special investigation.

Now it is evident that the head of the authority did not understand the scope of the KPMG report at all.

"Because on the day the KPMG report was published, which was a slap in the face for Wirecard, he bought Wirecard shares," says De Masi.

On the day of a phone call with BaFin about further regulatory findings - which were related to the KPMG report - he then sold the papers again.

De Masi also sees an urgent need for action in Altmaier's authority.

On request, the federal government informed him in November that it had no knowledge of share trading at Apas and other supervisory authorities, as there were no reporting obligations there.

“This outrageous process requires the dismissal of the head of the Apas and clear rules against insider trading in supervisory authorities and the ministries themselves,” said De Masi.

As early as November it became known that employees of the financial supervisory authority BaFin had traded massively in shares of the payment service provider before the Wirecard scandal was uncovered.

According to the Federal Ministry of Finance, 85 Bafin employees have made almost 500 private share deals with Wirecard since the beginning of 2018.

For Apas boss Bose, the phone call with BaFin was apparently not only enlightening, but also happy. At least he didn't lose any more money by selling his Wirecard position. Already so he made a minus. On April 28, when the KPMG special report became known, the share was quoted at EUR 97.60 at the close of trading. When Bose sold the shares a good three weeks later on May 20, they were trading at between EUR 82 and EUR 87.