What are the consequences of the Wirecard scandal for EY?

Good morning, dear readers,

collective bargaining for the public sector has failed. Employers and unions did not reach a result in the last of three planned rounds of negotiations. Both sides announced this during the night. Independent arbitrators will now seek a solution. The collective bargaining parties then negotiate again.

The good news: During the arbitration period, there is a peace obligation – so there will be no new strikes in the public sector over the Easter days.

Among the auditors who were involved in the Wirecard case, there is apparently an acute reluctance to do their job. According to Handelsblatt information, half of the twelve auditors against whom the responsible supervisory authority Apas is investigating because of possible misconduct in the Wirecard scandal have returned their inspection license.

This may be due to age or the sudden desire to really get going again as a Reiki therapist. However, there may also be an unusual clause: Anyone who gives up their profession as an auditor will end all Apas investigations immediately and without sanctions.

The auditing company EY, whose employees certified the wrong Wirecard accounts, cannot pull itself out of the affair so easily, in the truest sense of the word. The responsible Apas commission wants to decide on possible sanctions by Friday. A fine is considered certain. This is legally limited to a maximum of one million euros – auditing companies have probably already celebrated summer parties that were more expensive.

A temporary ban on accepting audit assignments from certain companies would be much more painful for EY. According to insiders from the EY environment, the Apas Commission is considering such a step.

An opinion poll reported by the Bloomberg news agency provides a first foretaste of the US presidential election next year. It is already clear: It could be a close race again.

Should Joe Biden run against ex-President Donald Trump, the representative poll by Quinnipiac University predicts a narrow victory for the incumbent president with 48 to 46 percent. On the other hand, should Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis run for the Republicans, the outcome would swing in his favor. However, Trump has better chances of being nominated within the party, significantly more Republican voters are in favor of him than of DeSantis.

Sure, that’s nothing more than an early mood picture. Especially since in the complicated American electoral system, the candidate with the most votes does not necessarily become president. But that is precisely why it would be wise for the Europeans to prepare for a scenario in which Kremlin buddy Trump will be in the White House again from 2025. I’m sure Vladimir Putin has done it for a long time.

The Japanese electronics store chain Nojima has more than 50 permanent and part-time employees over the age of 65 on the payroll. The oldest employee is even 81 years old. When she reached the internal retirement age of 80 in 2021, she wanted to continue working – and was allowed to after a health check.

Nojima shows how Japan deals with a problem that concerns all industrial societies: the stress on pension systems and the labor market due to increasing life expectancy and low birth rates. While Germany wants to counter the problem primarily with more immigration, Japan is opting for longer working lives. A quarter of the over-65s in Japan now work, significantly more than in western countries, as our chart shows.

The insight of our Tokyo correspondent Martin Kölling: “In addition to money, the Japanese are motivated by the belief that work is good for mental and physical fitness.”

As early as 1982, the stupid bards from “Geier Sturzflug” sang about the clearly more skeptical German attitude towards working with seniors:

“When Grandpa gets on his bike on Sunday
And secretly breaks into the factory
Then grandma is afraid that he will collapse
Because grandpa is doing an extra shift again today”

Also King Charles III. is well above the statutory retirement age at 74. At the banquet last night in Bellevue Palace, he knew how to take this fact with humor. In his after-dinner speech, which was partly in German, he pointed out that he had already been to Germany more than forty times: “Of course, that shows how important our relationships are to me, but also, I’m afraid, how long I’ve been around. “

The king also expressed his appreciation for Germany for taking in more than a million refugees from Ukraine. This is “convincing proof, it seems to me, of the generosity of the people in Germany”.

In addition to all the royal pomp, the state visit of the new British king also contains a serious political component: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak may present himself at home as a Brexit supporter, but in fact he wants a new chapter in relations with the European allies after the agonizing exit disputes pitch – and Charles is supposed to help. That is why the new king’s first trip abroad is not, as might have been expected, to a Commonwealth state, but to Berlin.

Industry insiders are already speculating as to when Philippe Rogge would quit his new job as head of Vodafone Germanyso little has been heard or seen of him since he took office on July 1, 2022.

Now it is clear: Rogge has been working on a restructuring concept. “Let’s be honest,” Rogge told my colleague Philipp Alvares, “We need a fresh start now. And to do that, we have to do some things completely differently in the future.”

In concrete terms this means:

• Rogge wants to cut around 1,300 of the 14,000 full-time positions at Vodafone Germany. Administrative and management positions are said to be particularly affected.
• At the same time, Rogge wants to create up to 400 new jobs, especially in major customer projects, technology and network operations.
• The former Microsoft manager would like to reposition Vodafone as Germany’s most trustworthy telecom provider – with better customer service and doing without bait offers, where, for example, free months at the beginning of the contract are later pushed through to higher prices.

Conclusion: First of all, cutting jobs and announcing a new beginning is part of the standard program for new top managers. But a telephone provider without tariff confusion and cheating, that would be a real innovation.

By the way, Mr. Rogge, we have a great Handelsblatt subscription offer for you: the first six months free, and then…

Best regards

Your Christian Rickens

Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt