German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/215, p.
27106.
Right honorable Herr President. Honorable ladies and
gentlemen.
Honorable preceding speaker Frau Ryglewski, the Wirecard
affair does not fall from heaven and we for very long discuss the BaFin
[Federal Finance Office] and its dis-functionality. I am delighted that the
Wirecard investigating committee – I am grateful to all of my colleagues – by means
of its pressure and its clarification work has contributed so that now the
coalition finally acts. Since, I believe, the matter of the BaFin has been
discernible for four years in the hearings, ladies and gentlemen.
Yet it is not only about the legal regulation. We have
associated with a very good draft law. What is to become much more clear –
which extends to all members of the government, which concerns all the
Ministers, the APAS [annual audit reports supervision], the Economics Ministry
and the Finance Ministry – is the corporate governance and, before all things,
the compliance. Which in the BaFin – as you have said –was gambled, since no
corresponding rules catalog was set
forth. Someone from the APAS – independent, but settled in the Economics
Ministry at the BAFA [Federal Office of Economic Affairs and Export Control] –
has Wirecard AG shares and shall supervise all of that.
Ladies and gentlemen, we similarly need to introduce for
auditors and for government entities like the Economics Ministry and all other
downstream, business-area authorities, a new compliance, a critical basic
attitude. When we do not do this, then many laws are wastepaper and come to
nothing.
I hear for example in reference to money laundering – which we
also need to go into – that here there is once again a gap between Niederbayern
and the BaFin. And here it is again the BaFin. If there is a regulatory gap in
the laws, then it is always the government which is guilty, which has brought
in the law; since they have bungled it by hand and not acted correctly or not
worked free of error. And it also must be said of what the government brought
about in 2005 or 2006 – that was then already the Merkel government: People,
you have worked with dirty hands.
With the so-called financial market integrity strengthening
law, Herr Scholz now attempts – this also needs to be plainly said – to, first
of all, win back political trust. Since the trust of the investor, the market
and the people who invest, will not be rebuilt by means of a draft law alone.
We need to fundamentally enter into this problem; and the AfD will
constructively participate in that. We have correspondingly put forward a draft
law [Drucksache 19/27023] – mark well,
a draft law, not only a motion.
I want to forestall some things. We of the AfD do not throw
out the baby with the bath water, but want the auditors’ liability limit –
this, according to the HGB [German commercial code], had been limited to 4
million euros – fixed at 1 percent of the balance sheet total of the auditing
firm, but at a minimum of 10 million euros. The government, especially the SPD,
wants 20 million euros, if possible, apparently 40 million euros – I do not
know – yet in any case to attach quite high totals in the penalty catalogue. I do
not believe it leads to better auditing and audit results if we turn up the
penalties. Yet they need to be appreciable and they should be oriented – this is
always reasonable – to which year’s turnover that the auditing firm actually
makes.
Further, we have a proposal for rotation; I can here already
imagine that one or the other groans. It must this time be presented: For 24
years might EY [Ernst & Young] have been able to fully audit and test
Wirecard. That it previously did not once come to that, that this is a bit
long, is not disclosed to me. We say here quite clearly – since there indeed is
criticism, yet what is worth doing – . No, at any time it shall be four years.
You now want to take ten years. Four years are appropriate. I do not want a
doctor who says he needs one, two years before he can do a heart operation or
until he can take out an appendix. No, I believe I can today expect from good
business auditing companies that when they audit a firm, they correspondingly
follow up immediately with their audit report.
All in all, my delegation nevertheless welcomes that the
coalition here very quickly reacts to the concerns of our investigating
committee. We will critically accompany this. We…hope that a case like Wirecard
in fact never again occurs, in the interest of savers, pensioners and, before
all things, Germany as a financial center and thereby the employees. Since
Wirecard has cost workplaces.
[trans: tem]
