2026 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting Season: EY and the Long Shadow of the Wirecard Scandal

Investor advocates are criticizing the reappointment of EY as auditor for Deutsche Bank and Volkswagen. Praise, however, for Allianz SE, which has chosen PwC for 2026. 

Deutsche Bank AG plans to re­appoint Ernst & Young (EY) as its aud­itor at the An­nual Gen­eral Meet­ing on May 28, 2026. Volk­swa­gen AG is pur­su­ing the same plan at its An­nual Gen­eral Meet­ing on June 18, 2026. This has drawn strong op­pos­i­tion from in­vestor ad­voc­ates. In stark con­trast, Al­li­anz SE is pro­pos­ing PwC — not EY — as its aud­itor at its An­nual Gen­eral Meet­ing on May 7, 2026. In­vestor ad­voc­ates have praised this decision.

What in­vestor ad­voc­ates are cri­ti­ciz­ing at Deutsche Bank and Volk­swa­gen: The re­appoint­ment of EY to the im­port­ant role of aud­itor is in­com­pat­ible with EY’s neg­at­ive role in the Wir­e­card scan­dal. EY re­fuses to provide any cla­ri­fic­a­tion re­gard­ing the Wir­e­card scan­dal and, des­pite sev­eral re­quests from the Bav­arian Higher Re­gional Court, is un­will­ing to ne­go­ti­ate com­pens­a­tion for Wir­e­card in­vestors. Fur­ther­more, in January/​February 2024, the Ger­man EY sub­si­di­ary un­der­went a dra­matic re­struc­tur­ing into mul­tiple com­pan­ies. This change in legal struc­ture is in­ten­ded to sig­ni­fic­antly limit cred­it­ors’ ac­cess to the as­sets of the formerly uni­fied Ger­man EY sub­si­di­ary. In other words: EY has downs­ized it­self so that, in the event of a crisis, it can at least use the newly es­tab­lished audit­ing com­pany as a refuge, even into in­solv­ency. One could simply de­scribe the re­struc­tur­ing as un­pro­fes­sional or even as a sleight of hand un­worthy of an aud­itor of ma­jor DAX-​listed corporations.

Share­holder Si­otto from Braun­sch­weig: “We can­not un­der­stand why Deutsche Bank is once again seek­ing to ap­point EY as its aud­itor. EY is among those re­spons­ible for the Wir­e­card scan­dal, the biggest fin­an­cial scan­dal in Ger­man his­tory. EY is ex­pli­citly re­fus­ing to com­ply with a Bav­arian Su­preme Court re­quest to seek set­tle­ment agree­ments with the vic­tims. On the con­trary: EY is act­ively shirk­ing its re­spons­ib­il­ity.” Cur­rently, Deutsche Bank is fa­cing al­leg­a­tions of al­leged in­volve­ment in money laun­der­ing activ­it­ies. In Janu­ary 2026, the Frank­furt Pub­lic Prosecutor’s Of­fice searched the headquar­ters’ of­fices. In March 2026, law­suits filed by former em­ploy­ees came to light in con­nec­tion with trans­ac­tions that Deutsche Bank had con­duc­ted sev­eral years ago with “Banca Monte dei Pas­chi di Si­ena.” Es­pe­cially in the face of such chal­lenges, the choice should fall on an aud­itor who is not it­self caught in the cross­fire of legal doubts.

At­tor­ney Dr. Schirp of Ber­lin, whose law firm rep­res­ents the lead plaintiff in the Wir­e­card class-​action law­suit: “We are just as baffled by Volk­swa­gen AG’s de­cision to rely on EY once again. Es­pe­cially given the back-​and-​forth sur­round­ing the res­ults of the 2025 fiscal year, a cred­ible fresh start would have been ne­ces­sary. When a sur­pris­ing 6 bil­lion euros in net li­quid­ity ap­pears in the year-​end fin­an­cial state­ments (Ad-​hoc 1/21/2026) and an aud­itor like EY ul­ti­mately cer­ti­fies everything, in­vestors un­der­stand­ably have doubts. This is be­cause, in con­trast to these pos­it­ive re­ports, there had been re­ports as re­cently as Septem­ber 2025 of massive impair­ment charges at Porsche AG, a sub­si­di­ary of the VW Group. At that time, there were sig­ni­fic­ant write-​downs and a down­ward re­vi­sion of the fore­cast, res­ult­ing in an un­fa­vor­able neg­at­ive im­pact on earn­ings of around 5 bil­lion euros for in­vestors (Ad-​hoc 9/19/2025). All of this took place un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the aud­itor EY, which ap­par­ently quickly “waves through” all of the client’s ac­count­ing man­euvers in or­der to re­tain its man­date in the fu­ture. For in­vestors, how­ever, all of this feels more like a lot­tery or a roller-​coaster ride than sound com­pli­ance and su­per­vi­sion. Volk­swa­gen plans to cut around 50,000 jobs in Ger­many by 2030 and needs the trust and co­oper­a­tion of its work­force. How is that sup­posed to work with an aud­itor like EY, which still re­fuses to ac­know­ledge its own role in the Wir­e­card scandal?”

In­vestor ad­voc­ates, on the other hand, have words of praise for Al­li­anz SE. Al­li­anz has se­lec­ted PwC as its aud­itor for the 2026 fiscal year. An ap­point­ment of EY would be con­sidered at the earli­est start­ing in 2027. Dr. Schirp and Si­otto com­ment: “This gives EY enough time to reach an agree­ment with the plaintiffs in the Wir­e­card class ac­tion case. If EY has come clean re­gard­ing Wir­e­card, there would be no reason why it couldn’t re­join the ranks of the ‘Big Four’ start­ing in 2027.”

The in­vestor ad­voc­ates will sub­mit counter-​motions at the an­nual gen­eral meet­ings of Deutsche Bank AG and Volk­swa­gen AG, aimed at pre­vent­ing EY from be­ing re­appoin­ted as aud­itor, par­tic­u­larly in light of its con­tin­ued re­fusal to co­oper­ate in the in­vest­ig­a­tion of the Wir­e­card scan­dal. Dr. Schirp and Si­otto are con­vinced that such an aud­itor can­not act in the best in­terests of the com­pan­ies in ques­tion and their in­vestors: They are ex­pressly seek­ing sup­port from all other shareholders.

For fur­ther in­quir­ies, please con­tact At­tor­ney Dr. Wolfgang Schirp and Roberto Si­otto, Braun­sch­weig, Tel. 0049-172-7539755, email: robertosiotto@​gmx.​de