Deutsche Bank board member investigated over alleged insider trading
Germany’s financial regulator has reportedly filed a criminal complaint against a Deutsche Bank board member over alleged insider trading of Wirecard shares.
BaFin has filed a complaint against Alexander Schutz over suspicions he used insider information in 2019 and 2020 when trading Wirecard shares, the Financial Times reported.
Munich prosecutors told the newspaper they had received the complaint and were awaiting further details. They will evaluate the matter once all the documents have been received.
Schutz joined the bank in 2017 but last month announced he was stepping down from the supervisory board. He came under pressure earlier this year over his communications with the former Wirecard boss Markus Braun.
He urged Braun to “do [the Financial Times] in!!” over its critical coverage of the disgraced German firm.
The collapse of Wirecard last summer proved to be one of the biggest accounting scandals to date and has raised questions over the failure of German authorities as well as its auditor EY to pick up on the red flags.
The German auditing regulator Apas launched a probe last summer into EY examining its involvement with Wirecard.
Additionally a recent German investigation found there had been serious shortcomings in EY’s audits of Wirecard and it had failed to spot fraud risk indicators.
It recently emerged the head of Apas Ralf Bose is under investigation after admitting buying and selling shares in Wirecard while investigating the firm.
According to the Financial Times, at the time Apas was in confidential talks with Germany’s financial regulator BaFin over Wirecard.