German audit watchdog head faces investigation over Wirecard share trading
Head of German audit watchdog Apas Ralf Bose is facing an investigation after admitting buying and selling shares in Wirecard while the regulator was investigating the troubled payments firm.
Bose, who has headed up German audit watchdog Apas since 2016 and is a former senior partner at KPMG, told a German parliamentary inquiry into the accounting scandal yesterday evening that he purchased Wirecard shares in April and sold them – at a loss – the following month.
According to the Financial Times, at the time Apas was in confidential talks with Germany’s financial regulator BaFin over Wirecard.
German economy minister Peter Altmaier then said Bose’s share deals would be investigated, later adding: “We will discuss the matter with the people involved.”
Apas is currently probing EY’s work on Wirecard. Following a lengthy investigation by the FT, the collapse of the payments company and the allegations connected to its demise became one of the biggest fraud scandals in Europe.
Wirecard collapsed after it disclosed a €1.9bn black hole in its accounts earlier this year.