Wirecard’s former chief financial officer Burkhard Ley has denied remaining a part of the German payment group’s inner circle after he retired in 2017, in his first public remarks since the business collapsed four years ago. Appearing at London’s high court as a witness in a civil case brought by Wirecard’s insolvency administrator, Ley was cross-examined for two days about his credibility, his responsibilities, his memory of events and apparent contradictions in his evidence.
Ley said he “did not ride roughshod” over internal concerns about one of the loans after meeting O’Sullivan in Singapore, and that Wirecard had “used internal and external experts” in its lending decision. From 2016 onwards, Wirecard’s fraud centred on allegedly fictitious revenues attributed to three partner companies, one of which was controlled by O’Sullivan. Wirecard collapsed in 2020 when it was revealed that €1.9bn of cash related to these partner business did not exist.