Keystone-SDA
This content was published on 05 September 2024 – 13:06
(Keystone-SDA) The Munich Regional Court has sentenced three former members of the management board of the bankrupt payment service provider Wirecard to pay huge damages. In total, the CEO, the CFO and the product manager are to pay 140 million euros.
Presiding judge Helmut Krenek assumes that they acted at least negligently when granting a loan and when subscribing to bonds and must therefore be held liable for the damage caused. Specifically, this concerns the former CEO Markus Braun and the finance and product directors.
The lawsuit was filed by insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé, who hopes to secure money for creditors through the proceedings. The verdict is not yet legally binding. On the contrary: those observing the trial expect that there will be appeals.
Former supervisory board chairman should not pay according to ruling
However, Jaffé failed with one part of the lawsuit: According to the ruling, the former deputy chairman of the supervisory board, Stefan Klestil, is not supposed to pay.
The judge also found that he had violated his supervisory duties. However, this did not lead to liability. Because the management board had already failed to comply with the supervisory board’s instructions in the past, it was not certain whether measures taken by the supervisory board would have helped in both cases.
The court, however, saw clear responsibility in the case of the three members of the Group Executive Board because the loan was not secured and there had been no thorough financial review before the bonds were issued. In the case of Braun and the Chief Financial Officer, Krenek derived responsibility directly from their departmental responsibilities. In the case of the Chief Product Officer, he argued that she should have become suspicious.
