EY has been banned from some audits in Germany as of April 2023 as a result of the Wirecard audit. Wirecard went under in 2020 and EY faced plenty of scrutiny after the audit of the 2016 to 2018 years.

Now they’ve been fined over $500,000 in Germany and they’ve been banned from auditing public interest companies in Germany. The controversy and regulation that EY has faced as a result of the Wirecard audit is probably one of the reasons that EY is looking to split its firm up.

Auditors from EY were also separately fined as part of the investigation.

Wirecard was started in 1999. Wirecard filed for insolvency after it a $2 billion accounting scandal.

EY will not be allowed to audit public interest companies for 2 years in Germany.