Wirecard: Court rejects dismissal motions

On Decem­ber 19, 2025, an­other court de­cision was handed down in the Wir­e­card model case. This de­cision is sig­ni­fic­ant for the fur­ther course of the proceedings.

Sev­eral parties in­volved had re­ques­ted that the pre­vi­ous model plaintiff in the Wir­e­card model case be re­placed. One ar­gu­ment was that the model plaintiff was fin­anced by lit­ig­a­tion fund­ing and was there­fore not in­de­pend­ent. An­other ar­gu­ment put for­ward by the ap­plic­ants was that the model plaintiff had not ap­pealed against the de­cision of the Bav­arian Higher Re­gional Court, ac­cord­ing to which the model case against EY was in­ad­miss­ible. The Bav­arian Higher Re­gional Court has now re­jec­ted these mo­tions in their en­tirety.

The court ex­pressly states that the model plaintiff is con­duct­ing the pro­ceed­ings prop­erly, ob­ject­ively, and within the frame­work of the legal re­quire­ments. A re­place­ment of the model plaintiff would only be con­sidered in ab­so­lutely ex­cep­tional cases — such as gross mis­con­duct or de­lib­er­ate dis­crim­in­a­tion against other in­vestors. In the court’s opin­ion, such cir­cum­stances do not exist.

-Lit­ig­a­tion fin­an­cing not an obstacle

The court also re­viewed the ex­ist­ing lit­ig­a­tion fin­an­cing. The res­ult: the lead plaintiff makes his own de­cisions. Neither the se­lec­tion of at­tor­neys nor any set­tle­ment de­cisions are bey­ond his control.

-No dis­ad­vant­ages for investors

The court also deemed the fact that the lead plaintiff did not file an ap­peal him­self to be leg­ally per­miss­ible and un­der­stand­able. Other in­vestors were able to – and still are able to – file their own ap­peals in­de­pend­ently of this.

Par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant for you as an in­vestor: the court cla­ri­fied that no in­vestor rights are be­ing in­fringed upon.

-State­ments made by at­tor­neys are leg­ally unobjectionable

In ad­di­tion, the court also clearly re­jec­ted the ap­plic­ants’ al­leg­a­tions that state­ments made by the at­tor­neys of re­cord – in­clud­ing at­tor­ney Dr. Schirp – were prob­lem­atic. Pub­lic ex­plan­a­tions of the trial strategy, for ex­ample in we­binars or the press, are per­miss­ible and an ex­pres­sion of nor­mal legal prac­tice. Stra­tegic dif­fer­ences of opin­ion with other plaintiff rep­res­ent­at­ives do not jus­tify dismissal.

In sum­mary, the court confirms:

• The lead plaintiff re­mains in office.
• The pro­ceed­ings are be­ing con­duc­ted in an or­derly and leg­ally se­cure manner.
• The in­terests of the co-​plaintiffs are protected.

We will con­tinue to provide trans­par­ent in­form­a­tion about all sig­ni­fic­ant developments.

Please also read here: Tilp and Pin­sent Ma­sons fail to re­move Wir­e­card lead plaintiff (juve, Janu­ary 5, 2026)

“The Bav­arian Higher Re­gional Court has re­jec­ted mo­tions to dis­miss lead plaintiff Kurt Ebert. Sev­eral law firms had ac­cused the lead plaintiff of be­ing un­der the in­flu­ence of lit­ig­a­tion fin­an­cier Jurfin and of de­lib­er­ately act­ing against the in­terests of the in­ter­veners. The court con­sidered these al­leg­a­tions to be in­suf­fi­ciently substantiated…”