Singaporean police are examining matters related to Wirecard AG, the German digital payments company whose shares have crashed amid allegations of executive forgery and fraud involving its Singapore office.
The police “are looking into the matter,” a spokeswoman for the force said yesterday in an brief e-mailed reply to questions from Bloomberg News.
Separately, the Singapore law firm Rajah & Tann LLP, one of Wirecard’s legal advisers, said it is unable to comment about the company because of “sensitivities.”
Photo: Reuters
Wirecard shares plunged more than 30 percent last week after the Financial Times reported that a senior company executive in Singapore was suspected of using forged contracts for several suspicious transactions.
On Friday, the FT cited a report from Rajah & Tann which it said had identified potential civil and criminal violations in Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Germany, findings that it said had formed the basis of a presentation to Wirecard’s senior management on May 8 last year.
Wirecard has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, calling the stories “inaccurate, misleading and defamatory.” Wirecard said no presentation was made to its senior management on the matter that day.
“Regrettably, we cannot respond to your queries at the moment due to sensitivities,” an external spokesperson for the Singaporean law firm said over the weekend, in response to queries from Bloomberg.
In Germany, financial regulator BaFin is looking at the issue for signs of possible market manipulation and Munich prosecutors are also reviewing the facts to decide whether to open a probe.
The digital payments company — which supplanted 149-year-old Commerzbank AG in Germany’s benchmark DAX index last year — operates in the tangled world of online payments. Founded in 1999, Wirecard initially provided financial services to online gambling and adult Web sites, barely surviving the dot-com bust. It is now threatening traditional financial services and until recently was worth more than Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s largest lender.
Zhang Yazhou was sitting in the passenger seat of her Tesla Model 3 when she said she heard her father’s panicked voice: The brakes do not work. Approaching a red light, her father swerved around two cars before plowing into a sport utility vehicle and a sedan, and crashing into a large concrete barrier. Stunned, Zhang gazed at the deflating airbag in front of her. She could never have imagined what was to come: Tesla Inc sued her for defamation for complaining publicly about the vehicles brakes — and won. A Chinese court ordered Zhang to pay more than US$23,000 in
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday held its first board of directors meeting in the US, at which it did not unveil any new US investments despite mounting tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Trump has threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, prompting market speculation that TSMC might consider boosting its chip capacity in the US or ramping up production of advanced chips such as those using a 2-nanometer technology process at its Arizona fabs ahead of schedule. Speculation also swirled that the chipmaker might consider building its own advanced packaging capacity in the US as part
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on Taiwan’s semiconductor exports to the US to encourage chip manufacturers to move their production facilities to the US, but experts are questioning his strategy, warning it could harm industries on both sides. “I’m very confused and surprised that the Trump administration would try and do this,” Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst and founder of TECHnalysis Research in California, said in an interview with the Central News Agency on Wednesday. “It seems to reflect the fact that they don’t understand how the semiconductor industry really works,” O’Donnell said. Economic sanctions would