Issuers must be concerned about the damage to the image of the German financial center caused by the inadequate supervision of BaFIn by the Federal Ministry of Finance.

As part of the federal administration, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) in Germany is subject to the legal and technical supervision of the Federal Ministry of Finance, within the framework of which the legality and expediency of the administrative activities of BaFin is monitored. For Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, details from his area of ​​responsibility will come to light in the election year 2021.

Employee transactions with stocks or derivative instruments that are related to Wirecard were examined. To this end, all employee transactions reported by employees in the high risk category A between January 1, 2018 and September 30, 2020 were evaluated. The number of transactions which were not reported by the employees of BaFin is not provided. The numbers therefore only relate to those employee transactions that were also displayed by them.

According to the BaFin, the evaluation showed that 510 of the employee transactions reported in the above period were related to Wirecard. 344 deals were stocks and 166 were derivative instruments. This business was done by 85 employees.

The figures suggest an astonishingly high level of financial activity by BaFin employees in their own interests. Obviously, in the federal agency monitored by Olaf Scholz’ Federal Ministry of Finance, self-interest in conducting lucrative speculative transactions has a high priority. In particular, investing in derivative instruments, which BaFin employees around Olaf Scholz (SPD) make active use of, require a large amount of time to monitor issuers and market developments in order to be successful. However, such a high number of these transactions was detected.

The BaFin had to admit anomalies, even about insider trading. According to the special audit, the person concerned was not able to access inside information about their business as intended, i.e. within the scope of their duties. However, she did the deal after the inside information was available in her organizational unit. Because of this and due to other special circumstances, it cannot be ruled out that the person was aware of the inside information. The suspicion of insider trading is therefore in the room and must be clarified further. The BaFin therefore initiated official and personnel law steps and filed a complaint with the responsible public prosecutor’s office.