The Wirecard headquarters in Aschheim, near Munich, Germany. Picture: REUTERS/ANDREAS GEBERTGermany’s blame game over Wirecard’s collapse is focusing in on the question of why authorities failed to take a harder look at the payments company before it became embroiled in the country’s biggest accounting scandal in living memory.
Wirecard’s crash from rising star to national disgrace has undermined the country’s reputation as a reliable place in which to do business and delivered a major blow to its fragile base of retail investors. While the government is taking action to prevent a repeat of similar cases, authorities have struggled to dispel the impression that they were more focused on protecting Wirecard than investigating allegations of wrongdoing.
Those ambitions collapsed when it filed for insolvency in June after saying that a quarter of its balance sheet didn’t exist. German prosecutors subsequently said that Wirecard’s €3.2bn of debt are most likely lost. The scandal has drawn comparisons to FlowTex Technologie, which caused €1.8bn of damage by selling non-existent drilling systems to leasing companies in the 1990s.
Legislators will also likely delve into what officials may have known about Jan Marsalek and his connections. The former Wirecard executive is at large and under the protection of the Russian secret service, Handelsblatt reported.