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Following yesterday’s decision by BaFin, the German Financial Regulator, to ban the selling of Wirecard share shorts, BETTER FINANCE joins its German member organisation in commending this unprecedented move.
It’s the first time that Germany’s financial watchdog banned short-selling on a single stock. The decision follows a probe over potential market manipulation in Wirecard shares and a sharp decline in share price following a series of articles in the Financial Times (FT) hinting at an investigation into creative accounting practices and fraud at several of the group’s Asian subsidiaries. The short selling “attacks” came at the same time and had a devastating impact on the share price.
DSW, Germany's leading association for private investors and BETTER FINANCE member, welcomes the ban on further short-selling and calls for complementary measures to protect investors.
BETTER FINANCE is also pleased to note that ESMA, the European Securities and Markets Authjority, also issued a statement in support of BaFin’s decision.
Guillaume Prache, Managing Director of BETTER FINANCE, stresses that “the decision to ban short-selling of Wirecard stock for the next two months is the right call since the recent dramatic drop in share price could pose a threat to German financial markets and harm individual investors and non-insider shareholders”.
