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Wirecard's massive fraud has been documented for over a decade, but the German financial oversight group BAFIN refused to do their job and investigate the fraud
by gizmo 6y ago
Wirecard's massive fraud has been documented for over a decade, but the German financial oversight group BAFIN refused to do their job and investigate the fraud claims: https://valueandopportunity.com/2020/06/19/wirecard-the-german-enron-a-very-personal-history-2008-2020/ https://valueandopportunity.com/2020/06/19/wirecard-the-germ...
There are some real lessons here about journalism, efficient markets, govt oversight, and truth prevailing in the very long run.
- JumpCrisscross 6y agoNot only that, the German financial regulatory response was to ban short selling of Wirecard’s stock.
- makomk 6y agoThe German financial regulators also launched a criminal investigation into the journalists investigating and reporting on the fraud: https://www.ft.com/content/8e1948be-6060-11e9-b285-3acd5d43599e https://www.ft.com/content/8e1948be-6060-11e9-b285-3acd5d435... Their handling of this was nothing short of asounding.
- StreamBright 6y agoAnd some people claim that EU is so much better than the rest of the world in terms of governments and legislation.
- phkahler 6y agoOh my. I thought Germany was a shining star in the EU, but not any more.
- usrusr 6y agoIn finance and fintech, many in Germany like to think of themselves as a bit of an underdog compared to London, New York and so on. This can be a dangerous source of moral licencing.
- roywiggins 6y agoYeah, just look at Deutsche Bank and the trouble they managed to get themselves into. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/17/deutsche-bank-faces-action-over-20bn-russian-money-laundering-scheme https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/17/deutsche-ba...
- TMWNN 6y agoBerlin Brandenburg Airport[1] makes Boston's Big Dig and San Francisco's Central Subway look good in terms of infrastructure efficiency. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
- samizdis 6y agoNo paywall at: https://archive.is/ysED2 https://archive.is/ysED2
- woodpanel 6y agoIn the BaFin's defense: - The accusations of FT journalist McCrum as well as the initial "bombshells" of shady "researchers" (that no one ever heard of before or thereafter) weren't really red-flags but rather came across as construed (the contents of those bombshells are not necessarily tied to the missing billions) - some of the outspoken short sellers have a shady history as well - What else should the BaFin as well as prosecutors do if there are witnesses that claim to know about FT, or someone connected, offering them future dates of incriminating articles to be released? Banning short-selling for a limited amount of time was the reasonable thing to do. - Simultaneously the prosecutors started investigating against WDI and the BaFin opened investigations weeks/months ago against WDI CEO and its leadership for cases of market manipulation (due to their communication in recent months), so they aren't exactly biased OTOH: - the aforementioned paints BaFin at least as slow to respond (I've had contacted them about other ponzi's in the past and it often took years (5+) until arrests were made). What is clear: - there is a high degree of criminal activity involved - it can't be a single person pulling this off - and at least one of them must be in the upper-echelons of WDI Whether or not Braun is that one will make all the difference for shareholders.
- woodpanel 6y agoWhat is beyond me: How the hell do you as a CEO manage to not see missing billions and/or not inform shareholders, clients and employees about that until the very-last day legally possible?!
- gizmo 6y agoIf you're extremely guilty you keep going until the music stops.
- mrich 6y agoThey were probably attempting to weasel their way out of it by raising extra cash (which they did recently) and stuff like that. However at some point their lawyers probably told them they will go to jail unless they come clean now so they did. What I don't understand is why nobody has been put in pretrial custody up to now.
- vkou 6y agoThe handling makes perfect sense if you assume that they have been compromised. Compromised in the sense that their primary job is optics, not regulation.
- mschuster91 6y agoThat's common though, the SEC did a lot of short selling bans in the 2008 financial crisis.
- neximo64 6y agoThe SEC had stock bans on companies accused of fraud?
- H8crilA 6y agoDon't forget the messed up incentives. The only people that did their jobs were the short sellers (who have their incentives set up correctly). Everyone else involved in this story deserves to be fired, bankrupted, or thrown in jail.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> only people that did their jobs were the short sellers And the whistleblower and the journalists.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoIt's tempting to wonder if perhaps elements in the German political and financial establishments were profiting from this, and the CEO will be the fall guy. It seems extremely organised and well-protected for alleged fraud. Usually fraud relies on personal/corporate reputation. But when you have both lawyers and hackers being employed to take down critics and investigators, it's reasonable to ask questions about regulator collusion and political influence.
- easytiger 6y agoBeing outside the Anglosphere omits a considerable amount of accountability in the west.
- ar0 6y agoI call Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". The problem was that German politicians were extremely desperate for at least one large-scale German "new tech business" success story, and Wirecard seemed to be the only candidate that on the face of it appeared to fit the bill. That blinded them to the obvious and made them see an anglo-saxon conspiracy to keep German tech down behind every reasonable story about Wirecard. In my opinion, it shows the dangers when national protectionism and picking winners intrudes in the supposedly neutral business of regulating critical businesses.
- gizmo 6y agoWhen fraud is too brazen it becomes difficult to believe the accusations because the claims are so outrageous. Especially when a company looks respectable and employs many people the natural instinct is to dismiss the naysayers and critics. Short sellers and investigative reporters are natural contrarians. There just aren't many people willing to invest years into proving that everybody else is wrong, especially when the victory -- if you get one at all -- will be pyrrhic. When you make claims that are outside the overton window of the listener they can't hear what you're saying because to them you sound unhinged. I think that's what happened here.
- arkadiytehgraet 6y agoI believe the easiest explanation here is that the group was heavily invested in the stock under question.