EY is now banned from carrying out audits for firms of public interest in Germany for two years following an investigation into the company’s role in the Wirecard collapse.

The company has also been fined €500,000 by the country's accounting regulator APAS.

German payment processor Wirecard collapsed in 2020 after announcing that there was a €1.9 billion black hole in its accounts and that it was €3.2 billion in debt.

EY served as Wirecard’s auditor and certified its books, even when investors and journalists began to raise questions over the company's stability.

EY would go on to say that the hole in Wirecard’s accounts came as the result of sophisticated global fraud.

At the time, the company’s chief executive officer resigned and was arrested on suspicion of false accounting.

APAS said that it found "breaches of professional duty" in the audit of the financial statements of Wirecard AG and Wirecard Bank AG in the years 2016 to 2018, adding that it had issued sanctions on the auditing company itself – which it did not name directly – as well as five auditors.

The move comes several months after German lender Commerzbank said that it was suing EY over the losses it suffered in the collapse of Wirecard.

The bank filed a case in a Frankfurt court against the accounting firm over the €200 million in losses it incurred as a result of Wirecard’s downfall.

This is one of a number of suits ongoing against EY over its dealings with Wirecard.

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