In the Wirecard scandal, insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé achieved an important stage victory in the processing of the multi-billion dollar accounting fraud.

The Munich Regional Court ruled on Thursday that the Wirecard annual financial statements for the 2017 and 2018 financial years were void.

The court also determined the nullity of the dividend resolutions based on this at the respective general meetings.

The court ruling is another building block for the insolvency administrator's efforts to recover funds from the insolvency estate for the creditors of the collapsed payment service provider.

Katja Gelinsky

Business correspondent in Berlin

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Tillman Neuscheler

Editor in Business.

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The insolvency administrator's focus is primarily on the dividends for 2017 and 2018, which, as is now clear, were paid out without a legal basis.

It is about a total of around 47 million euros.

The question of tax refunds also arises.

However, the judgment could also have legal consequences beyond the insolvency proceedings, for example for claims for damages against former members of the management or supervisory board of the former Dax group, as well as for the auditor EY, who certified the balance sheets without restrictions.

The criminal justice system is also dealing with the scandalous company, which had to file for bankruptcy in 2020 when it came out that the books were 1.9 billion euros less than claimed.

Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun has been in custody since July 2020 and is accused of accounting fraud, among other things.

The public prosecutor's office accuses him of having signed the annual accounts for 2015 to 2018, even though he knew that the group's balance sheets were inflated.

The former sales director Jan Marsalek is still in hiding today.

Recently there has been growing evidence that he lives near Moscow.

air bookings?

The Munich district court followed the insolvency administrator's argument that the assets in the balance sheets for the years 2017 and 2018 had been significantly overvalued - according to the court by around 40 percent in both years.

The court left open the controversial question of whether the 1.9 billion euros that Wirecard said were in trust accounts in Southeast Asia were air bookings.

According to the conviction of the insolvency administrator, this sum never existed.

Wirecard invented it to improve the balance sheet and attract new investors.

Last year, lawyers presented the court with bank statements from the bank OCBC in Singapore, where the alleged trust accounts allegedly existed.

The presiding judge, Helmut Krenek, had hinted at the hearing that the annual financial statements were null and void if it was proven that the alleged sums had been invented.

Wirecard boss Braun and his lawyers had always claimed that the money existed.