A EUR 2 billion hole at Wirecard. The firm that signed off the books for years? Fined EUR 500,000 - about 0.03 % of the missing money. What the German audit watchdog APAS decided in 2023: EY breached its professional duties on the 2016-2018 audits, got a EUR 500,000 fine and a two-year ban on new public-interest audit mandates. Five individual auditors paid between EUR 23,000 and EUR 300,000 each. The Bundestag inquiry called Wirecard accounting fraud - a political assessment, not a court ruling. Presumption of innocence applies: the Munich criminal trial is still running, no verdict yet. Was EUR 500,000 enough? Yes or no - comment below. Full story on YouTube: @Empire_BreakdownEN #Wirecard #EY #Auditors #FinanceScandal #BigScandals #Germany #learnontiktok Music: Investigations by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Photos: Kaethe17, CC BY-SA 4.0; Leo Molatore, CC BY-SA 2.0; Ansgar Koreng, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE; Juergen Matern, CC BY-SA 3.0; Chaddy, CC BY-SA 4.0; Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 4.0; qwesy qwesy, CC BY 3.0; Jean-Luc Valentin, CC BY 3.0 DE; EY logo photo, CC0 (all Wikimedia Commons); Wirecard logo: public domain Sources: Bundestag Drucksache 19/30900 (22 Jun 2021, majority and opposition votes - a political assessment, not a court ruling); APAS press release 3 Apr 2023 (decision of 31 Mar 2023); Wirecard ad-hoc 22 Jun 2020. Munich criminal trial ongoing since Dec 2022, no verdict (as of Oct 2026). 0.03 % = own calculation (500,000 / 1.9 billion). Report card graphic: own illustration, not the original cover. - @empirebreakdown.en