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| 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!
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