MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - The whistleblower whose information contributed significantly to the collapse of the DAX-listed company in summer 2020 will be absent as a witness in the Wirecard trial in Munich. The Singaporean lawyer has canceled his participation scheduled for this Wednesday at very short notice, the Munich I Regional Court announced.
The court did not give his name. However, the lawyer in question is Pav Gill, who used to work for the Wirecard legal department in the Southeast Asian island state. The lawyer discovered suspected sham transactions there and reported his suspicions to the group headquarters in the Munich suburb of Aschheim. As Gill's impression was that Wirecard management did nothing, Gill turned to journalists, public prosecutors and auditors. The British Financial Times published its first article based on Gill's information in February 2019, followed by numerous other revelations.
This means that former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun, who has been in custody for over four years, will not meet the man in court who set the ball rolling for the company's downfall. The Financial Times had already reported on suspected irregularities at the German payment service provider years earlier. However, Gill was the first whistleblower to pass on concrete information about the suspected sham transactions and balance sheet manipulation to the London newspaper./cho/DP/jha