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A senior Deutsche Bank executive and former EY partner who was in charge of the Wirecard audits has taken legal action to try to prevent a German parliamentary committee from naming him in a report on the scandal.
Andreas Loetscher, who was one of EY’s two main audit partners at Wirecard between 2015 and 2017, filed a court order in Berlin on Monday against the publication of the report, which will be discussed on Friday in Bundestag, first anniversary of Wirecard insolvency.
The move is part of a battle between former Wirecard auditors and German lawmakers. EY already disagrees with parliament over the publication of a scathing report by a special investigator, who concluded that the audits suffered from a number of major shortcomings.
People familiar with the matter told the FT that the ban application was filed privately by Loetscher and that the move was not coordinated with his current or former employers. Deutsche declined to comment and EY did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wirecard collapsed after acknowledging that there may never have been 1.9 billion euros in corporate cash. He had previously received unqualified audits from EY for more than a decade.
Loetscher joined Deutsche in 2018 as chief accounting officer after more than two decades at EY. He temporarily retired from this position late last year, but has remained an audit consultant.
He claimed the job change was the result of “unsustainable suspicions” from the committee. At the time, Deutsche said it occurred “at Andreas’ request and by mutual agreement.”
Loetscher’s work as principal auditor is in the public domain as he personally signed the Wirecard audits, and his last name was mentioned in the available annual results of the missing group’s audience.
Last November, when he was invited as a witness at parliamentary hearings on the Wirecard scandal, he declined to answer questions, citing an investigation into his conduct by regulators.
Shortly afterwards, Munich criminal prosecutors announced that they had initiated a criminal investigation into certain EY partners by Wirecard.
Loetscher, who has denied any offense, has argued that any mention of his name in the public report would infringe his personality rights. His lawyers have suggested that he could be referred to by his initials instead of his full name.
Loetscher and his lawyer did not immediately respond to an FT investigation.
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