Does it make sense to register with the DSW’s “Stichting Wirecard Investors Claim” foundation?

The DSW (Deutsche Schutzver­ein­i­gung für Wer­t­papi­erbesitz e.V.) to­gether with the law firms Nied­ing + Barth (Frank­furt am Main) and AKD Be­ne­lux Law­yers (Am­s­ter­dam), which spe­cial­ize in cap­ital mar­ket law, has es­tab­lished the “Sticht­ing Wir­e­card In­vestors Claim” found­a­tion, which is based in Am­s­ter­dam and aims to achieve com­pens­a­tion for Wir­e­card in­vestors within the EU. The goal be­hind it: To reach a set­tle­ment not only with EY Ger­many, but also with EY Global.

Un­der Dutch law, claims can be brought dirextly against the par­ent com­pany in ad­di­tion to the com­pany con­cerned, so ac­tion against EY Global is pos­sible here. Ul­ti­mately, it is the Dutch found­a­tion that sues, and all oth­ers join the ac­tion free of charge, sim­ilar to a US-​style class ac­tion. The bar of proof does not seem to hang quite as high in the Neth­er­lands as in Ger­many, so the chances of suc­cess seem to be bet­ter and the dur­a­tion of pro­ceed­ings usu­ally shorter.

How­ever, in our opin­ion, the claims situ­ation against EY Global is lack­ing. The ques­tion of on what legal basis claims can be lit­ig­ated re­mains open here. In ad­di­tion, no breach of dury is apar­ent with re­gard to EY Global. Fur­ther­more, it is ques­tion­able whether Global had a duty to mon­itor or su­per­vise (at least un­der Ger­man law).

In ad­di­tion, it can­not be as­sumed that EY should now aban­don its “hard line” – namely to strictly re­ject all set­tle­ment pay­ments to date.

We there­fore con­sider this op­tion to make little sense and con­tinue to re­com­mend tak­ing legal ac­tion against EY Ger­many. If the set­tle­ment op­tions fail, the only re­main­ing op­tion is to file a law­suit against EY Ger­many be­fore the statue of lim­it­a­tions ex­pires on Decem­ber 31, 2023.