Wirecard After the Collapse: The Trial, the Missing Billions, and the Slow Legal Cleanup

Wirecard collapsed in June 2020 after revealing that €1.9 billion it had reported on its books likely did not exist. The scandal became Germany's biggest post-war corporate fraud case and raised broader questions about auditors, regulators, and board oversight. The immediate collapse was dramatic. The aftermath has been much slower.

The central unresolved piece remains the Munich criminal trial of former chief executive Markus Braun and other former executives. Braun has denied wrongdoing and has argued that he was deceived by others. By 2026, the main trial had entered its fourth year, which is part of why casual readers often misread the story as already finished when it is not.

Other parts of the case moved faster outside Germany. In January 2026, Singapore police announced the sentencing of R. Shanmugaratnam and James Henry O'Sullivan over false confirmation letters tied to escrow claims involving more than €1.1 billion. Both indicated that they would appeal. Those convictions gave the scandal concrete criminal outcomes in a different jurisdiction even while the Munich trial continued.

Civil litigation also kept moving. In September 2024, a Munich court ordered Braun and two others to pay €140 million in damages in one case, though the ruling was not final. In February 2025, another German court ruled that EY Germany was not liable in a shareholder damages case, and plaintiffs said they would appeal. That combination is what makes Wirecard's aftermath important: the criminal core remains unresolved, but the legal cleanup never stopped.