The criminal investigation of the historic Wirecard scandal will start in December.

As announced on Wednesday, a mammoth trial against the imprisoned former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun will start on December 8th in the Greater Criminal Court of the Munich Regional Court.

The hearing is expected to last 100 days until 2024 in the conference room of the Munich-Stadelheim prison.

Mark Fehr

Editor in Business.

  • Follow I follow

Another mammoth procedure in connection with the Wirecard scandal is ongoing.

It is the professional law procedure of the auditor supervisory authority APAS against the auditing company EY.

According to reports, the authority will make its eagerly awaited decision on sanctions against the auditing company involved in the Wirecard scandal and against individual current and former employees of EY at the beginning of next year.

As the FAZ learned, the meeting of the APAS decision-making chamber, which began in October, is to be continued in the second or third week of January.

During this meeting, the APAS staff charged with investigating EY will report their findings to their peers and then make a decision together.

The official notices are to be sent to the affected auditors and EY in March.

It had previously been expected that the notifications would be sent out as early as December.

Complex case for the APAS

The APAS proceedings against EY are probably the largest and most important that the authority has been entrusted with to date.

The APAS already described how complex the matter is in its annual report published in May.

The supervisory authority evaluated extensive internal working papers prepared by the auditors responsible for Wirecard.

The APAS investigations were directed against the auditing company EY and against 12 people in connection with the audit of the annual and consolidated financial statements of Wirecard and Wirecard Bank for 2015 to 2018. EY was responsible for the audit of Wirecard's business figures for around 10 years but recognized a balance sheet hole in the billions much too late.

The APAS process must address the question of whether EY and the responsible auditors have breached their professional duties.

This could have serious consequences for the auditing company and for many damaged Wirecard shareholders and creditors who confront EY with high claims for damages.

The legislator has equipped the APAS auditor supervision with sharp swords for such cases.

For example, the authority can ban people from working as auditors for 3 to 5 years or even exclude those affected from the profession of auditor.

In addition, the APAS can prohibit an auditing firm from working for public-interest clients for a period of between one and five years.

It would be devastating for EY if the audit firm were no longer allowed to audit publicly traded companies.