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Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun only read a brief statement to the parliamentary inquiry commission in Germany, but also declined to make any statement. There is an extensive investigation into the case, the 51-year-old Austrian said in Berlin on Thursday. Trust in the independence and objectivity of the judiciary, in the case of the Munich prosecutor’s office. This will clear up the case.
The longtime CEO, who is currently in custody in Augsburg, added that he had not yet spoken to the prosecutor. But he signaled their willingness to cooperate. He declined to comment on specific issues. He went on to say that he was invoking his right to refuse to testify.
Braun’s lawyers had previously requested that the business IT specialist be questioned only by video. The Federal Court of Justice had requested a personal appearance in Berlin in the Bundestag.
Wirecard went bankrupt in June after a multi-billion dollar accounting scandal emerged. The prosecution accuses Braun and other Wirecard managers of commercial gang fraud, account falsification and market manipulation. Wirecard is said to have been calculated for years with systematic air bookings and thus inflicted billions in damage to investors and banks. In his last public appearance thus far, Braun had portrayed the company as a victim of large-scale fraud.
In addition to Wirecard, the financial supervisory authority BaFin and an audit firm are criticized in the case. The central question in the political reassessment should be when the German federal government knew of the wrongdoing and did very little about it.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), who campaigned for Wirecard on a trip to China last year, and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) will also be questioned as witnesses in the investigative committee. In response to the scandal, Scholz presented an action plan to reform financial supervision. However, the opposition accuses him of trying to divert attention from his own failure as the main financial regulator.
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