'Day of pain': Wirecard boss denies charges in massive fraud trial

Wirecard AG

13/02/2023 10:36

By Jörn Poltz
       MUNICH, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The former boss of Wirecard
on Monday expressed his "deepest regret" over the collapse of
the defunct payments company but denied all allegations as he
took to the stand in Germany's biggest post-war fraud trial. 
    Dressed in his trademark black turtleneck and rimless
spectacles, the one-time chief executive Markus Braun said he
had no knowledge of any forgery or embezzlement and believed he
was running a legitimate and healthy business. 
    Austrian-born Braun, 53, and two other ex-Wirecard managers
Oliver Bellenhaus and Stephan von Erffa are on trial on charges
including market manipulation and fraud and face up to 15 years
each in prison if convicted. 
    Braun has been in custody since the 2020 collapse of
Wirecard, which shook Germany's business establishment, putting
politicians who backed it and regulators who took years to
investigate allegations against the firm under intense scrutiny.
    "I had no knowledge of counterfeiting or embezzlement,"
Braun told a court in Munich, describing the discovery of 1.9
billion euro ($2 billion) hole in Wirecard's balance sheet as a
"day of pain" for shareholders and employees. 
    In the opening exchanges of the trial last year, Bellenhaus,
who became a key witness after turning himself in to the
authorities, painted Braun as an "absolutist CEO" calling the
shots at the heart of a vast swindle. 
    Braun, who has spoken only briefly before at the trial to
confirm his personal details, pushed back against that
characterisation, saying he had relied on what he believed to be
proper accounting and auditing. 
    At the start of a testimony that is expected to go on for
several days, Braun retold his early years at Wirecard,
describing a struggling startup where he and other managers 
pulled all-nighters and worked with a sense of mission.
    "There was in reality no life outside the company," he said,
speaking throughout in a calm and concentrated voice. 
    At the start of the trial in December, prosecutors accused
the defendants of being part of a gang that invented vast sums
of phantom revenue through bogus transactions with partner
companies to mislead creditors and investors.
    Braun's lawyers have alleged that Bellenhaus was the main
perpetrator of the fraud at Wirecard, which began processing
payments for pornography and online gambling and rose to be a
blue chip DAX company worth $28 billion. 
 (Reporting by Jörn Poltz and Alexander Hübner
Writing by Matthias Williams
Editing by Mark Potter)
 ((matthias.williams@thomsonreuters.com;))