Wirecard scandal: BaFin’s boss Hufeld has to go

At BaFin, there is a change to the top after the Wirecard scandal. As announced by the Federal Ministry of Finance, the head of the authority, Hufeld, is evacuating his position by mutual agreement in the course of a reorganization.

The head of financial supervision, Felix Hufeld, leaves the authority after the Wirecard scandal. The Federal Ministry of Finance announced that it was mutually agreed that there should be a new beginning in terms of personnel at the top of BaFin. Details on the rebuilding of the Bonn authority will be released next week. He is accused of having failed in the Wirecard scandal.

“New personal start”

“We are combining BaFin’s planned organizational reform with a fresh start in terms of personnel,” said Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. The Wirecard scandal revealed that the German financial supervisory authority “needs a reorganization to be able to fulfill its supervisory role more effectively,” the ministry continued. BaFin has commissioned an investigation, the results of which will be presented next week.

Scholz explained: “I would like to expressly thank Felix Hufeld for his great commitment at the top of BaFin over the past eight years. Hufeld himself wished his successor” only the best “in tackling the upcoming tasks.

The 59-year-old lawyer, who has run BaFin since March 2015, called Wirecard’s affairs “shameful” and spoke of the “most appalling situation” a company had ever seen a company in the first German stock market. At the same time, he was self-critical of the role of the supervisory authority: “We have not been effective enough to prevent something like this from happening.”

More layoffs from audit authorities

Shortly after Hufeld’s retirement, BaFin’s deputy director Elisabeth Roegele also left authority. Roegele was responsible for securities oversight at BaFin and had been in the crossfire of criticism for a long time because of his role in the Wirecard scandal. In early 2019, it prohibited short selling of Wirecard shares for two months and thus prohibited gambling against the Dax group. Even then, the payment provider was accused of manipulating the balance in media reports.

Apas’ head of audit oversight, Ralf Bose, has to go too. He had already been released in mid-December, and on January 13 he received an extraordinary notice from the responsible Federal Office for the Economy and Export Control. Bose was criticized for stock deals in connection with the Wirecard balance sheet scandal.

The now insolvent Wirecard AG had granted air bookings of 1.9 billion euros in June. The Munich public prosecutor’s office now assumes a “commercial gang fraud”, since 2015. More than three billion euros could be lost.