Auditor Ralf Bose released after Wirecard scandal

Dhe head of the Apas auditor supervision, Ralf Bose, has been released after doing business with Wirecard shares. The Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (Bafa) announced on Monday that the integrity of the Apas should be ensured until the facts are finally clarified. The Apas is located at the Bafa.

Bose traded in shares of the now collapsed payment processor, while the federal authority took a closer look at the work of the then Wirecard auditor Ernst & Young (EY), as was revealed by the Bundestag committee of inquiry last week. Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU) said on Friday that this process had alienated him. On Friday, Bafa President Torsten Safarik informed Apas boss Bose that he was released with immediate effect, the authority said on Monday.

Bose bought shares in Wirecard on April 28 and sold them again on May 20, as participants in the committee meeting had said after Bose’s questioning. So he acquired it on the very day when the payment processor received a damning verdict from KPMG’s auditors in a special report. The experts had searched Wirecard’s balance sheets for months and stated that they could not find any evidence of sales abroad. The shares that were still listed in the Dax at that time fell by more than 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the SPD finance politician Cansel Kiziltepe is reporting to the Wirecard investigative committee because of what she sees as inconsistent statements
Auditors from EY. “I assume that he gave false testimony to the Wirecard investigative committee,” said Kiziltepe on Monday. The background is a phone call between the man and the Apas auditors.

The auditor stated that he had only asked for a contact person for the legal department during this telephone call. Several other witnesses questioned in the committee contradicted this and stated that he had inquired about a criminal complaint by the Apas against EY auditors.