100 court dates set for Wirecard trial
Once hailed as a standard-bearer for the German tech industry, Wirecard imploded spectacularly in 2020 after admitting that 1.9 billon euros missing from its accounts probably didn’t exist
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Once hailed as a standard-bearer for the German tech industry, Wirecard imploded spectacularly in 2020 after admitting that 1.9 billon euros missing from its accounts probably didn’t exist
Ex-Wirecard CEO Markus Braun goes on trial in Munich this week for his role in the collapse of the once-celebrated payments firm, brought down by the biggest accounting fraud scandal in German corporate history.
Austrian-born Braun and two other former Wirecard executives will appear in the dock on charges of commercial gang fraud, breach of trust, market manipulation and accounting manipulation.
The Munich district court has scheduled 100 court dates for the mammoth trial.
Wirecard, once hailed as a standard-bearer for the German tech industry, imploded spectacularly in 2020 after admitting that 1.9 billon euros missing from its accounts probably didn't exist.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was finance minister at the time, described the scandal as "unparalleled" in post-war Germany.
Braun, who has been in custody for over two years, denies any wrongdoing. The 53-year-old has pointed the finger at Wirecard's fugitive former chief operating officer, Jan Marsalek, a shadowy figure with alleged ties to foreign intelligence agencies.
Marsalek was reported earlier this year to be hiding out in Russia.
It took German investigators more than 20 months to unravel the complex web of fraudulent transactions implicating Wirecard subsidiaries and third-party companies across the globe.
Bavarian startup
Prosecutors say the accused presented "incorrect" financial results from 2015 to 2018, by including fabricated revenues and profits from partner companies in Dubai, the Philippines and Singapore, and using forged documents to make Wirecard appear more successful than it was.
Among the victims of the fraud were banks that had provided credit of 1.7 billion euros to Wirecard. Bonds worth 1.4 billion euros were also issued and are unlikely to be repaid.
Founded in 1999, the Bavarian start-up Wirecard started out processing payments for porn and gambling sites and grew into a respectable electronic payments provider that edged traditional lender Commerzbank out of the blue-chip DAX index.
Rumors about possible cheating at Wirecard surfaced now and again over the years, including from shortsellers doing research on companies they suspected might be overvalued.
But Wirecard's problems began in earnest with a series of Financial Times articles in 2019 alleging irregularities in its Asian division, based on revelations from former employees and leaked documents.
The company was initially able to fend off the claims, with the FT's journalists themselves coming under investigation from German regulators.
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