Wirecard investors cannot pursue the auditor in the model case, Federal Court of Justice rules

Investors in the collapsed Wirecard AG cannot have their damages claims against the group's former auditor decided in the ongoing model case. Germany's Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) has ruled so. In a decision of 23 September 2026 its third civil senate rejected all appeals against a partial model ruling by the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court (Bayerisches Oberstes Landesgericht), case number III ZB 7/25. The court in Karlsruhe announced the decision on 29 October 2026.

What the proceedings are about

In the proceedings under the Capital Markets Model Case Act (Kapitalanleger-Musterverfahrensgesetz, KapMuG), the parties dispute whether Wirecard breached its duties to inform the capital market with its annual reports for 2014 to 2018. In March 2022 the Munich I Regional Court referred numerous issues for determination to the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court. What is established in the model case is binding on the individual lawsuits that have been stayed.

The audit firm had given Wirecard's consolidated financial statements and group management reports for those years an unqualified audit opinion each time. It is accused of having thereby taken part in misleading information to the capital market, or of having given false information itself. After a hearing on the admissibility of the issues in November 2024, the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court pronounced a partial model ruling on 28 February 2025 that rejected all issues aimed at the audit firm as not permitted in a model case, and most of the remaining issues as inadmissible. The lead appellant and 1,076 other third parties to the proceedings appealed; 566 more joined the appeals. None of them succeeded.

Why the audit opinion is not covered

The decisive law is the KapMuG as in force until 19 July 2024. In the senate's view, an audit opinion is not public capital market information under that version. The wording of the act is not clear, it said, but its structure shows that claims over an incorrect audit opinion cannot be the subject of a model case. Had lawmakers wanted to include the opinion, it would have been natural to name it explicitly alongside the annual accounts, management report and consolidated accounts. Nor do the legislative materials of 2005 and 2012 mention it as a case the act covers.

Basing the claims on the auditor's alleged participation in breaches of duty by Wirecard is not enough either, the court said. The act's limitation would be undermined if a false audit opinion alone, as aiding a false piece of capital market information, were sufficient. The Bavarian court had also been right to reject further issues because they were not worded precisely enough, it found.

The new law names the opinion explicitly

The decision concerns the old version of the act, under which the Wirecard proceedings are being conducted. The version of Section 1 of the KapMuG in force today explicitly counts information in auditors' opinions on the issuer's annual and consolidated financial statements that must be disclosed as public capital market information.

The Wirecard case

Wirecard headed a global group that mainly provided IT-based electronic payment services, and its shares were in Germany's DAX index from September 2018 to August 2020. On 22 June 2020 the company announced in an ad hoc disclosure that bank balances of €1.9 billion in trustee accounts most probably did not exist. Insolvency proceedings were opened on 25 August 2020.

What happens next

The Bavarian Supreme Regional Court said in January 2026 that it had decided on part of the more than 2,000 applications to extend the model case to further issues, and that the rest were still to be decided. The costs of the appeal proceedings are borne proportionately by the appellants and those who joined them. The senate set the value in dispute for court fees at €30 million.