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Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun was forced to let go of his top defence lawyer because of lack of funds, in a major setback for the businessman accused of orchestrating Germany’s largest corporate fraud.
Alfred Dierlamm, one of Germany’s most prominent white-collar crime lawyers, walked away from the high-profile mandate last month after the funds of Braun’s directors and officers insurance ran out and the former Wirecard chief was unable to pay him directly.
The Wiesbaden-based lawyer, who represented Braun before Wirecard’s collapse in 2020, said he informed the court in late May about his resignation. In a letter to the court seen by the Financial Times, he stressed that the decision was entirely triggered by “financial considerations”.
Braun, who has been in custody since July 2020, recently lost a series of civil lawsuits against his D&O insurance when the latter refused to pay after an initial tranche was released.
Wirecard, which at its peak was valued at €24bn, filed for insolvency in June 2020 after disclosing that half of its revenue and €1.9bn in corporate cash did not exist. Braun has been charged with fraud, breach of trust, account rigging and market manipulation. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in jail. He has denied wrongdoing.
While Braun had been a billionaire during Wirecard’s heyday, most of his fortune was tied up in now-worthless shares of the payment company. His remaining wealth has been seized by the court at the behest of Wirecard’s administrator and his family office, which managed his assets, filed for insolvency earlier this year.
The trial against Braun and two other former Wirecard managers began in December 2022 and is expected to run well into next year. It will continue despite Dierlamm’s departure, as the court appointed a government-paid lawyer who will remain in charge and be backed by two additional state-funded lawyers.
Since the collapse of Wirecard, Dierlamm and his legal team had immersed themselves in the complex accounting scandal, digging through a plethora of documents and payment flows between Wirecard subsidiaries and external partner companies.
They accused Munich prosecutors of not properly investigating the case, ignoring key evidence and relying on a problematic chief witness. Dierlamm tried to prove that Wirecard funds had been siphoned off by the company’s second-in-command Jan Marsalek and others without Braun’s knowledge.
However, during the trial Markus Födisch, the judge presiding over the case, has challenged these arguments repeatedly. Earlier this year he released former Wirecard manager Oliver Bellenhaus, who has turned chief witness, from custody, in a move seen as a sign of confidence in his testimony that heavily implicated Braun.
Braun could come under more pressure if the third defendant, Wirecard’s former head of accounting Stephan von Erffa, breaks his silence. His lawyers have upheld similar arguments as Dierlamm. But Födisch indicated that a multiyear jail term could be reduced if von Erffa decided to come clean. Erffa’s lawyers are in talks with the court about a deal.
Die Zeit first reported Dierlamm’s resignation.
Read the full article here
