Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#251

Post by oh_sigh » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

sbmthakur wrote: post #90

calpaterson wrote: post #22

Sadly can't read the article as I don't have a subscription but have followed this in the FT. Germany has an ultra-protectionist political culture for pet German companies. Wirecard was one such pet company but there are many others who have benefited from implicit state support in the form of lowered standards and private favouritism: Deutsche, VW, Siemens, etc. Wirecard even holds a banking license so should be sub…

This is a nice summary for those who either don't have access to the FT coverage or are out of the loop: When €2 Billion went missing at Wirecard: https://finshots.in/archive/wirecard-accounting-scandal/

"Went missing" is a weird way to put it, because it never existed in the first place.

If I convince everyone I have a Rolls Royce Sweptail in my garage(even though I don't), but then someone opens the garage and says there is no Sweptail in there, I don't think anyone would describe the Sweptail as going missing - merely that its existence in my garage was a lie.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#252

Post by hutzlibu » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #72

maze-le wrote: post #26

> Sure, it's not like Russia or the CCP and you're not in danger of being suicided if you uncover some high level dirt You are not going to get disappered, but you are in danger of getting a fraudulent "psychiatric diagnosis" if you are a tax investigator uncovering dirt about some politicians or their cronies.[0][1] In this case the investigator got free, but I am sure there are some cases out there of people who di…

Well, that's an example that I'd consider specifically Bavarian, where CSU has been ruling for longer than the CCP has been ruling the PRC (no joke, if you ignore the wartime years the CCP already held power pre-PRC). On a national level things aren't looking quite as grim.

" On a national level things aren't looking quite as grim"

With the recent Amthor scandal, where many established politicans really did not see a scandal at all(probably because it is normal), I am sceptical to this claim.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#253

Post by oh_sigh » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

gridlockd wrote: post #231

sdinsn wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it is true, it is insider trading. No, it's only insider trading if the information is based on insider (AKA private) information. Anything that can be derived from public information, even with a stretch, is also considered public.

I could have made myself clearer, I am talking about "damaging insider information". Publishing already published information isn't exactly news. In this case, the alleged accounting fraud mentioned in the FT article was insider information.

It depends where the knowledge came from - did it come from an insider, or was the accounting fraud discovered by poring over public records?

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#254

Post by freeflight » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

> Sure, it's not like Russia or the CCP and you're not in danger of being suicided if you uncover some high level dirt

Gustl Mollath [0] would probably disagree with that notion, just like the death of Jürgen Möllemann [1] left more questions unanswered than a proper investigation of him would very likely have answered. Similar situation with Wolfgang Hüllen during the CDU donations scandal.

Similarly the NSU process saw a lot of witnesses die under rather weird circumstances [2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_M%C3%B6llemann

[2]https://www1.wdr.de/fernsehen/aktuelle-stunde/startseite/nsu...

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#255

Post by csharptwdec19 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

squiggleblaz wrote: post #64

cosmodisk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All western countries are corrupt. The difference from the usual suspects is the way it's done. If in Russia, it may be as simple as cash in hand, in Germany or Britain it will be kids placement into a nice job, maybe a donation to a family run charity org, or a contract to friend's friend's construction company. Or even the good old one,where you do a favour and 5-7 years later, once not in government position anymo…

You're being downvoted because network effects aren't the same as corruption. Although it is certainly unpleasant to consider that government officials might be making decisions more favorable to one company than another in the hope or expectation that that they will get a board seat five years hence, it is worth noting that if they upset one company now, they may get the board seat on the other company. And since an…

I think your core statement highlights the bigger problem with our progression as a society overall;

We don't eliminate corruption as we 'advance', but instead we just keep abstracting it away until the less observant don't see it as corruption but instead some form of 'networking'.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#256

Post by hutzlibu » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

apexalpha wrote: post #63

chii wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how can a company be both owned by, but also regulated by "the same" entity? that is a conflict of interest aint it?

This would hold true for any government owned entity... In practice, the 'same entity' are very different people in government with different mandates.

But they all know how "important the car industry for germany is". And if they don't know, they will find out.

Heck, even the german car newspapers apparently would not really attack german cars on a serious level. At lest I head of a case, where a reporter from Auto Bild was on a test drive for a shiny new car model - and some shiny new feature did not work. What they did, was not report it, but secretly worked out, how to conceal that in the reporting. (no sources avaiable, heard it from people in the industry)

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#257

Post by formerly_proven » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #213

chki wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bribery isn't "hard to prove" but instead there are no credible bribery accusations at all. Missmanagement in massive infrastructure projects are a much more reasonable explanation. It also makes a lot of sense because the actors are often state government officials that have never overseen a comparable project. Planning an airport or a new flagship concert hall is difficult. I agree that there were serious mistakes…

And this cluelessness is then abused by contractors. With flanking maneuvers targeting political leadership. No clear cut corruption, but the lines get blurry. Fun fact, for a very long time German companies could declare bribes paid abroad in their taxes. Legally. Seems that a lot of people didn't get the memo that bribery was, indeed, illegal now.

> Fun fact, for a very long time German companies could declare bribes paid abroad in their taxes. Legally. Seems that a lot of people didn't get the memo that bribery was, indeed, illegal now.

Surprisingly realistic policy, considering that bribery is simply part of everyday business in some locales.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#258

Post by freeflight » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

chki wrote: post #16

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

>If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insanely corrupt the German government and their corporate buddies are. This is obviously not true. There have been numerous uncovered political scandals in Germany that have led to politicians and managers loosing their job. Christian Wulff (Former German President), Guttenberg (f…

> Christian Wulff (Former German President), Guttenberg (former Defence Minister)

None of these two served any prison sentences. Wulff was acquitted after he refused to pay 20k € to make it instantly go away and even had damages paid.

Guttenberg was caught plagiarizing for his doctoral dissertation, which is a rather common thing among German politicans. As a consequence he lost some public clout, but instead wrote a book for even more publicity, afaik right now he's doing some work for Springer in the US, biding his time for a another comeback in German politics.

Meanwhile to this day even Kohl's donation scandal, hasn't seen any proper investigation, nor the Amigo-scandal, NSU-scandal, nor the countless others, particularly on a local state level.

Heck, just look at people like Mehdorn and projects like the BER construction site: He, being such a highly renowned and well paid manager, was supposed to fix that mess. Nothing was fixed, the whole thing is still a massive mess, political consequences for anybody actually responsible? Pretty much zero.

The thing is: We Germans are very good about keeping up appearances, as a result of that inconvenient truths and topics often fall by the wayside.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#259

Post by papito » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

What about Deutsche Bank? The absolute gold standard in international money laundering.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#260

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #213

chki wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bribery isn't "hard to prove" but instead there are no credible bribery accusations at all. Missmanagement in massive infrastructure projects are a much more reasonable explanation. It also makes a lot of sense because the actors are often state government officials that have never overseen a comparable project. Planning an airport or a new flagship concert hall is difficult. I agree that there were serious mistakes…

And this cluelessness is then abused by contractors. With flanking maneuvers targeting political leadership. No clear cut corruption, but the lines get blurry. Fun fact, for a very long time German companies could declare bribes paid abroad in their taxes. Legally. Seems that a lot of people didn't get the memo that bribery was, indeed, illegal now.

[deleted]