The auditing company KPMG was commissioned by Wirecard to provide a special report in autumn 2019.
The payment processor Wirecard, which collapsed after air bookings, massively obstructed the special audit of its balance sheet according to the accountancy firm KPMG.
KPMG employee Alexander Geschonneck said on Thursday in front of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the multi-billion dollar financial scandal that documents were repeatedly not handed over or only handed over late, interviews were regularly postponed. “There were significant delays.”
In the period under review from 2016 to 2018, the company based in Aschheim near Munich – under Austrian management – did not provide adequate evidence of alleged incoming payments and account balances in Asia.
KPMG was commissioned by Wirecard to issue a special report in autumn 2019 because numerous allegations of accounting irregularities had already been made in the media at that time. KPMG then presented its critical report at the end of April 2020 – “after considerable hurdles and obstacles from Wirecard,” said Geschonneck. In June, the former Dax group went bankrupt when the air bookings finally became public.
The Munich public prosecutor's office accuses ex-boss Markus Braun and other Wirecard managers of commercial gang fraud, falsification of accounts and market manipulation. The company is said to have been calculating itself for years, inflicting billions in losses on investors and banks.
According to SPD politician Jens Zimmermann, the Bundestag investigative committee has received numerous documents from KPMG. The actual Wirecard auditor EY (Ernst & Young) believed in the existence of Wirecard trust accounts worth 1.9 billion euros, which are missing from the balance sheet, until April 2020. “At least that suggests documents that we have viewed,” said Zimmermann. KPMG must save the industry's reputation. FDP politician Florian Toncar added that KPMG was crucial to clarifying the case.
