Markus Braun has been in prison in Augsburg-Gablingen for almost a year and a half – on remand. During this time, the former CEO of the scandalous company Wirecard had many files to read: documents, papers and testimony. Little of what the investigators have put together over time is likely to have pleased him. But none of that seems to contradict the document that he will probably get to read at the beginning of the new year: the indictment against him and other former corporate executives on suspicion of serious economic crimes.
The Munich I public prosecutor’s office intends to bring the first charges against Wirecard by March at the latest. Together with Braun, the prosecutor’s key witness, the former Wirecard manager Oliver B., will also come to court. And probably a former financial manager of the payment service provider, the company that crashed bankrupt in mid-2020 because an alleged corporate asset of almost two billion euros turned out to be a fake. Shareholders and banks lost more than 20 billion euros.
The person who, according to the public prosecutor’s office, is supposed to have steered the alleged lies and fraud together with Braun is still on the run: ex-board member Jan Marsalek. The foreseeable trial at the Munich I Regional Court against Braun and others will probably have to begin without him. A long process is emerging. Probable duration: a year or more.
Braun, who has been hailed as a visionary by many shareholders, continues to deny all allegations. The public prosecutor suspects him of falsifying accounts, of fraud in the billions of dollars, of manipulating the Wirecard share price and of embezzling corporate assets amounting to several hundred million euros. The ex-CEO had repeatedly protested his innocence in his interrogations in December 2020. Wirecard was robbed behind his back. According to his version, Braun would be a victim – not a perpetrator.
Braun has to remain in custody
However, neither the public prosecutor nor the judiciary see it that way. The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Munich recently decided that Braun must remain in custody – due to the persistent risk of escape and blackout. In view of the serious allegations and the size of the case, the extraordinarily long detention was justified. The OLG is now pressing for a swift indictment. The public prosecutor’s office has been working on the indictment, which will probably be hundreds of pages long, for weeks because it is a unique scandal to describe.
Wirecard is the first and so far only group from the German share index (Dax) to go bankrupt. Braun and other accused are said to have invented business deals with so-called third-party partners in Asia, thus deceiving the shareholders and defrauding the banks and investors who gave Wirecard more than three billion euros. At least that’s what the prosecution thinks. Braun and his defense lawyer Alfred Dierlamm reject these allegations. They claim that the so-called third-party business largely existed. The proceeds were put aside without the knowledge or assistance of the chief executive of Marsalek and some loyal followers. So it is in Dierlamm’s brief on the detention test in December.
The Munich Higher Regional Court, however, tore this version of the defense to pieces. From the court’s point of view, there is no evidence that the third-party business ever existed. It thus continues to believe in the statements of the key witness Oliver B., who heavily incriminates Braun and others. B. was governor of Wirecard in Dubai on the Persian Gulf for many years. After the bankruptcy of the group, B. turned himself in to the public prosecutor, made a confession and testified in numerous interrogations against Braun and other group managers. B. is also in custody.
The previous decisions by the Munich Higher Regional Court on Braun’s custody allow the conclusion that the ex-CEO should not have an easy time in the pending trial against him. The court referred, among other things, to the testimony of a corporate lawyer, according to which Braun had regularly set goals that were less based on actual company figures than on the wishes of investors.
Another company employee testified to the public prosecutor that he had a gut feeling at the end of 2018 that the numbers were tweaked. Braun had specified 25 to 30 percent growth. You could have set the clock so that this has always been achieved. The Munich Higher Regional Court also referred to this testimony in its detention decisions against Braun. The witness had further testified that he found it absurd that such values had been achieved even though Wirecard had been so poorly positioned internally.
In view of the damage that the ex-CEO is said to have caused, the OLG believes that he is facing a substantial prison sentence. Braun, on the other hand, protests his innocence. During his interrogations a year ago, according to the minutes, he clearly distanced himself from today’s key witness of the public prosecutor’s office. Half a year before the bankruptcy, it was planned that Oliver B. and other people should be fired.
Braun further stated that it was also clear that his fellow board member Marsalek should be removed from his area of responsibility. Marsalek was responsible for the Asian and so-called third-party business, among other things. At that time, Braun was already talking about shadow structures with which he had been betrayed. And by analogy with the fact that he did not see the enemy in his own house.
In the coming year, the longtime Wirecard boss will probably have the opportunity to tell his version publicly – in court.