POLITICO: Commission weighs Wirecard fixes for EU financial rules

24 July 2020

The European Commission is considering tightening EU financial rules in the wake of the Wirecard scandal. The collapse of the German financial technology company with €1.9 billion missing from its books has raised serious questions over its supervision.

But Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner for financial services, said the Commission was also assessing whether there are lessons for relevant pieces of EU financial legislation.

“We will assess how to improve relevant EU rules so that that kind of cases can be detected and addressed at early stages,” he told journalists. “This assessment is still ongoing and will be concluded after summer — but we are open to fix what needs to be fixed.”

He pointed in particular to the EU’s Transparency Directive, Accounting Directive, Statutory Audit Regulation and Market Abuse Regulation.

The EU is also weighing the supervision of “third-party critical infrastructure providers” as part of an action plan for fintech firms.

Dombrovskis said the main problem in the Wirecard case was misleading information being provided to investors in listed companies. Wirecard was listed on Germany’s DAX index of blue-chip companies.

“We are ready to also look at the EU-level regulatory response to this case but it is worth noting that here we also face a clear breach of rules,” he added.

This requires an assessment of any failings of supervision, Dombrovskis said, which is currently being undertaken by the European Securities and Markets Authority.

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