Comment by woodpanel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by woodpanel | Hacker News Reader

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In the BaFin's defense:

- The accusations of FT journalist McCrum as well as the initial "bombshells" of shady "researchers" (that no one ever heard of before or thereafter) weren't really red-flags but rather came across as construed (the contents of those bombshells are not necessarily tied to the missing billions)

- some of the outspoken short sellers have a shady history as well

- What else should the BaFin as well as prosecutors do if there are witnesses that claim to know about FT, or someone connected, offering them future dates of incriminating articles to be released? Banning short-selling for a limited amount of time was the reasonable thing to do.

- Simultaneously the prosecutors started investigating against WDI and the BaFin opened investigations weeks/months ago against WDI CEO and its leadership for cases of market manipulation (due to their communication in recent months), so they aren't exactly biased

OTOH:

- the aforementioned paints BaFin at least as slow to respond (I've had contacted them about other ponzi's in the past and it often took years (5+) until arrests were made).

What is clear:

- there is a high degree of criminal activity involved

- it can't be a single person pulling this off

- and at least one of them must be in the upper-echelons of WDI

Whether or not Braun is that one will make all the difference for shareholders.

One of the short sellers called BaFin's whistleblower hotline to report them the proof they had of the fraud.

- "[short seller] Do you speak english?"

* "[BaFin] Sure of course.

- "[short seller] I have proof of Wirecard's fraud..."

* "[BaFin - interrupting] Wirecard? Oh sorry no we don't speak english. [hang up]"

And that right there is indeed BaFin's fault. They are at best negligent and at worst a malicious entity, that has scammed many investors out of a lot of money.

TBF: I know enough German to answer the phone and give some answers to basic questions, but not enough German to make on-the-record statements about some important legal issue.

I mean, I ultimately agree BaFin is shady as hell here, but I can at least imagine a scenario where someone thought "wait I thought we were going to talk about something routine my language skills are not good enough for something this sensitive".

> "wait I thought we were going to talk about something routine my language skills are not good enough for something this sensitive".

On the international whistleblower hotline of the financial regulatory agency? At least they could have connected them with somebody, or tell them to send an email somewhere, but hanging up doesn't sound shady to me, it just sounds lazy :P

It doesn't sound shady? Shouldn't they be very interested in the information?

> Shouldn't they be very interested in the information?

Yes, public servants should be interested in doing their job properly.

In Germany at least, they are un-fireable, so it isn't unusual for many of them to just being counting the days until retirement. Some "harder" task arrives? Sorry can't do that - what are you going to do about it? I can't be fired.

They should have translators on call for any of the official spoken languages in the EU.

However, considering it's a department that deals with complicated legal issues, my experience living in Germany tells me there's a decent chance the person answering the phone knows formal English better than the person that called.

If they didn't listen they didn't want to listen.

Interesting, you got a link? In my dealings with BaFin they were rather open and capable (but slow to act).

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/868001948

thanks. tbf the original quote is:

"EARL: I phoned the whistleblower line there, and I said, do you speak English? Yes. Then as soon as I mentioned Wirecard, they then said, oh, actually, I don't speak very good English. Could you call back? Or then another time, the phone just went dead."

Which kind of confirms trowawaygh's spitballing.

Anyways, this specific short seller's account sounds more like its going to be part of a movie.

What is beyond me:

How the hell do you as a CEO manage to not see missing billions and/or not inform shareholders, clients and employees about that until the very-last day legally possible?!

If you're extremely guilty you keep going until the music stops.

They were probably attempting to weasel their way out of it by raising extra cash (which they did recently) and stuff like that. However at some point their lawyers probably told them they will go to jail unless they come clean now so they did. What I don't understand is why nobody has been put in pretrial custody up to now.

I may be falling victim to Braun's non-existing aura, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of his buddies capitalizing on his trust.

It was repeatedly bemoaned that in the case of WDI, a blue chip prime standard stock, worth more than any German bank (as of yesterday morning) was managed like a Mittelstand family business.

It is really weird that WDI's management board was almost completely staffed with former fellow students (or people who are affilliated with people he knew) from Austria, people who often outside of WDI had no job experience.

In the best case this is just due to unicorn-growth. In the worst case, they are all in this together. Probably, it is something in between, that they we're unfit for the big game and one/some of them took advantage of it.

Usually, when reports are wrong journalist retract them. That you get sued over it by government authorities is, AFAIK, a first in Germany.

There's a difference between "getting sued over by government authorities" and government authorities investigating suspicions.

The "getting sued over" part didn't happen. Public prosecutors investigated – and didn't filed suit. At least for now (I doubt they will).

This misrepresentation of such a small but important distinction (sueing vs. investigating) is one that was also repeatedly seen in short-sellers tweets in the anglo-sphere.

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