In Germany, the accounting firm EY can’t take on any new auditing clients that are “of public interest” for the next two years because of its mistakes with the failed payments company Wirecard.
The ban was put in place by the German APAS for “breach of professional duty” between 2016 and 2018. APAS also gave EY a fine of €500,000 and gave five employees small fines.
Wirecard was a rising blue chip star until 2020, when it was found that its balance sheet had a huge €1.9 billion hole in it.
For more than 10 years, EY gave the company clean audits. However, the Big Four firm refused to sign off on the company’s 2019 results.
Since then, EY has lost some big clients in Germany, like Commerzbank, DWS, and KfW. In January, it was made public that Commerzbank is suing EY to get back €200 million in losses from the collapse.
Marcus Braun, the former head of Wirecard, is on trial right now for fraud, theft of company assets, accounting fraud, and market manipulation. He said he wasn’t guilty.
