Asset manager DWS, which belongs to Deutsche Bank, wants to appoint EY as its new group auditor. The move must be approved by shareholders at the company's Annual General Meeting. The vote is likely to be a formality. Deutsche Bank, for which EY has also been the auditor for many years, holds almost 80 percent of DWS.

The fact that several DWS subsidiaries have filed lawsuits against EY on behalf of equity funds over the scandal is not seen as a problem by the asset manager, as reported by the «Financial Times».

Several funds managed by DWS had bought hundreds of millions of euros worth of Wirecard shares shortly before the comany collapsed in one of Europe's biggest accounting scandals in 2020.

EY Stays Out of Plaintiffs' Cases

In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the funds in question will be managed by another auditor. «Possible, albeit unlikely, conflicts of interest are avoided by the fact that these subsidiaries are not audited by EY Germany,» says DWS. The asset manager did not wish to comment further on ongoing legal disputes.

According to circles, the other auditor is said to be the French firm Mazars.

New Client Suspension and Fine

The German Auditor Oversight Authority (APAS) found errors in the Wirecard report audit and banned EY from accepting new audit mandates from listed companies based in Germany for a period of two years. EY also had to pay a fine of €500,000. This period expires at the end of March 2025.

In 2022, EY had a market share of around one third of DAX companies. Last year, it was around 15 percent. EY has been auditing Qiagen's balance sheet since the beginning of the year. This is possible because although the company is listed on the stock exchange in Germany, it is headquartered in the Netherlands.

Compulsory Carousel

Since 2017, larger listed companies in the EU have been obliged to change their auditor every 10 years. Due to the mandatory rotation, EY had to relinquish mandates for two years without being able to accept new ones. The market leader in Germany is PwC, followed by Deloitte.