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The Wirecard scandal does not let the Bafin come to rest.
Now the authority has reported an employee of the securities regulator on suspicion of insider trading.
Bafin announced that the employee sold structured products with the Wirecard base value on June 17, 2020.
A day later, the payment service provider made a balance sheet hole of 1.9 billion euros public.
Wirecard then had to file for bankruptcy at the end of June.
That puts the head of the authorities Felix Hufeld in further distress.
He had repeatedly stood in front of his employees.
As far as he knew, the employees who traded Wirecard shares had done nothing wrong, he said in November, for example, but added at the time that the investigations were ongoing.
According to its own information, the Bafin has now discovered the suspicion of insider trading in its special evaluation that is about to be concluded.
She then immediately released the employee and opened disciplinary proceedings.
The suspicion of insider trading was reported to the Stuttgart public prosecutor's office on Wednesday.
The authority did not want to comment on the position in which the employee reported was and how much he was involved in the supervision of Wirecard.
The Bafin also did not comment on the amount traded.
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As early as the summer it became known that employees of the financial supervisory authority 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. In October, the authority tightened the compliance rules for their employees' private securities transactions.
These changes came much too late, say critics - like so many things with the authority that is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The criminal complaint of the Bafin punished Felix Hufeld himself lies, said the financial politician Fabio De Masi.
"Mr. Hufeld recently claimed that everything went correctly at the Bafin," he said and called for similar rules of conduct for dealing with securities transactions for ministries and the Bundestag.
Bafin President is said to have looked the other way for a long time
The demands for rescission are also getting louder from other parties.
The Green MP Danyal Bayaz now sees Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) challenged.
“Why the finance minister still believes that Mr. Hufeld is the right person for the necessary cultural change remains Scholz's secret,” he said.
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The FDP politician Florian Toncar also called for a fresh start at the top of the Bafin: "Olaf Scholz must finally realize that the current management of the Bafin will no longer be able to restore the reputation and authority of this authority." must now provide comprehensive information about the role of the employee in relation to Wirecard.
Finance Minister Scholz did not deal directly with Hufeld's personnel in a statement, but commented on the employee's report.
"This is a serious process that the special audit in the Bafin has now brought to light," said Scholz.
If the suspicion of insider trading was confirmed, many questions arose.
“And it proves the need for reform that exists there.” In the next few days he will present the results of an investigation into the organizational realignment of the Bafin.
The main criticism of Hufeld for months has been that he and his employees have looked the other way at Wirecard for far too long.
Just this week, the British financial newspaper "Financial Times" reported that in June, shortly before the fraud was exposed, Hufeld still believed it was at least possible that the then DAX company had been the victim of attacks by foreign investors.
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He explained this to Wirecard supervisory board chairman Thomas Eichelmann in a telephone conversation after the company had already discovered that 1.9 billion euros were missing and EY's auditors had refused to give the certificate.
One of the biggest financial scandals of the post-war period is investigated for falsification of accounts, fraud, market manipulation and money laundering, among other things.
According to the Munich public prosecutor's office, this involves more than three billion euros.
Before the German Bundestag's committee of inquiry into the Wirecard scandal, which has been running since October, the Bafin complex will be an issue from the end of February according to previous plans.
President Hufeld and the director responsible for securities supervision, Elisabeth Roegele, will then be questioned as witnesses at the end of March.
The probability that Hufeld will then be questioned as the incumbent Bafin President has at least not increased this week.
"Everything on shares" is the daily stock market shot from the WELT business editorial team. Every morning from 7 a.m. with the financial journalists Moritz Seyffarth and Holger Zschäpitz. For stock market experts and beginners.
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