Wirecard - Great Moments in Regulatory Oversight

 

Wachsam sein --immerzu

On 10 December Mr. Naif Kanwan, executive director for enforcement and market monitoring at Apas, the Federal Republic’s audit “watchdog”, gave testimony at German parliamentary hearings on Wirecard.

Olaf Storbeck has an absolutely delightful (though ultimately disturbing) account on that testimony which appears in the print edition of Friday’s FT (where else?)

Let’s run through the quotes. AA’s commentary in italics.

“My impression was: somebody is on the case, has been looking at the allegations and came to certain conclusions.” He added that this “subconsciously influenced my thoughts about the matter”. 

One reading of this quote is that it is an admission that the apparently aptly named naif was not on the case. And saw little reason to disturb himself. George will do it. 

Perhaps as well, that Mr. Naif’s investigations are conducted based primarily on the operation of the subconscious. If you will, a Freudian approach to regulation. Hence the picture above. The subconscious, as I hope you know, is more active during sleep.

Alternatively, it could just be an attempt to create an excuse. Feigned faulty memories or low intelligence are often proffered to “explain” failures.

Asked if he believed in early 2019 that FT journalists colluded with short sellers, Mr Kanwan pointed to BaFin’s ban and criminal complaint. “These moves were in line with such a picture,” he said.

Indeed, it is certainly well known-at least in certain circles-that short sellers are a nefarious bunch always up to no good bad mouthing fine companies. And that short sellers have never ever pointed out fraud before regulators woke up.

Equally that there really haven’t been any cases of external auditors missing or colluding in accounting irregularities.

It’s also well known that major financial newspapers don’t take action against columnists that collude with short sellers, particularly when a major regulatory agency lodges a criminal complaint.

Shame on you, FT! 

Especially since this also happened with NMC – though to be fair in that case no criminal charges were lodged.

He acknowledged the watchdog at the time was unaware of earlier allegations against Wire-card raised by short sellers in 2016 in the so-called Zatarra report. That only changed in October 2019 after the FT published internal Wirecard documents pointing to a concerted effort to fraudulently inflate sales and profits.

One (at least AA) expects a watchdog to “wachsam sein immerzu” to quote the old song from the East. Though AA admits that he may be ignoring the possibility of “repressed memories”.

As a positive comment, I’ve heard--and not just from short sellers or financial journalists--of a communications service called the “internet” which I am assured allows one to follow news, conduct searches, etc. 

They say it’s quite useful.

I am even also told that one  can set up “alerts” to be advised of news on a particular topic, company, etc. without having to take an active steps –other than setting up the alerts.

Remarkable if true.

On that latter point, he did note: 

 “As a lesson learned, we have improved our press monitoring.”

лучше поздно, чем никогда!