Despite a two-year ban on taking on new listed audit clients in Germany, EY has secured its first new Dax-listed audit client since the Wirecard scandal. Qiagen, a biotech company listed in both New York and Frankfurt, has appointed EY as its new group auditor, starting in January. This appointment highlights the limitations of national audit regulations in Europe.
EY has signed up its first new Dax-listed audit client since the collapse of payments group Wirecard despite a ban on winning auditing mandates from listed German companies. Qiagen , a biotech group listed in New York and Frankfurt, has hired the Big Four firm as its new group auditor from January, when it will replace KPMG, which has held the mandate for a decade.
EY took on the mandate months after accepting a two-year ban on taking on new listed audit clients in Germany following alleged violations of its professional duties in its audits of Wirecard, which collapsed in 2020 in one of Europe’s biggest ever accounting scandals. The mandate from Qiagen, which has €2bn in annual revenues and a market capitalisation of €10bn, highlights the limitations of national audit regulation in Europe. While Qiagen’s European operational headquarters is in the German town of Hilden near Düsseldorf and the company is one of the 40 members of Germany’s blue-chip Dax index, it is incorporated in the Netherlands, having moved its legal headquarters to Venlo in 1996. “We are a Dutch incorporated company with global shares listed in the US on the NYSE and also in Germany,” Qiagen said in a statement. German audit watchdog Apas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Wirecard fraud plunged EY Germany, which had issued unqualified audits for the payments group for almost a decade, into crisis. Despite repeated whistleblower complaints and critical press coverage, the firm missed that €1.9bn in corporate cash and half of Wirecard’s revenue were fake. After a multiyear investigation, Apas concluded that EY’s audits had been “at the very least” negligent and in some cases grossly negligent, the Financial Times previously reported. However, it did not establish whether the firm had acted with criminal inten
EY Audit Wirecard Qiagen Germany Europe Financial Regulation
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