Wirecard accounting chief admits 'mistakes' in fraud trial

Wirecard's former top accountant spoke Wednesday for the first time in the ongoing trial into the $2 billion fraud scandal that brought down the German payments firm and acknowledged making mistakes.

Stephan von Erffa said he sometimes felt overwhelmed in the job but rebuffed the accusations made against him by prosecutors.

"I had a lot on my plate and at times I felt like a juggler," von Erffa said at a court in Munich.

"I see that unfortunately I made mistakes that I regret," he said.

But the 49-year-old insisted that he had never used his position to enrich himself and sought to play down his role at the scandal-hit firm.

"I never took part in board meetings," von Erffa said.

Wirecard imploded spectacularly in June 2020 after it was forced to admit that 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in cash, meant to be sitting in trustee accounts in Asia, did not actually exist.

The firm's Austrian-born former CEO Markus Braun has been in the dock since December alongside von Erffa and Oliver Bellenhaus, the former head of Wirecard's Dubai subsidiary.

Prosecutors allege the trio invented revenue streams with third-party companies to inflate Wirecard's accounts and make the loss-making company appear profitable.

In his testimony, von Erffa distanced himself from Braun, saying the former Wirecard chief was "unapproachable".

He also said his previous silence in the trial was down to his mistrust of the public prosecutor on the case.

"I got the impression that exculpatory evidence was not wanted," he said.

Bellenhaus, his co-defendant, has admitted to fraud and turned chief witness for the prosecution, telling judges in December that Wirecard was "a scam" from the start with Braun "at the core of everything".

Wirecard's collapse sent shock waves through Germany, drawing parallels with the accounting scandal at US energy giant Enron in the early 2000s.

It prompted an overhaul of Germany's finance watchdog BaFin, heavily criticised for ignoring early warnings about Wirecard.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was finance minister at the time of Wirecard's implosion, described the scandal as "unparalleled" in Germany's post-World War II history.