EY Germany Handed Two-Year Ban After Wirecard Audit Failures

EY’s German business has been banned for two years from accepting major new audit mandates, after it failed to uncover fraud at Wirecard AG.

Ernst & Young GmbH breached its professional duty when auditing the payments firm’s annual reports for 2016, 2017 and 2018, Germany’s audit watchdog APAS said in a statement Monday, which didn’t mention EY by name. It levied a fine of €500,000 ($542,330) on EY and banned it from new audit work for companies of “public interest,” though it exempted contract renewals.

The decision is the harshest regulatory consequence yet for EY Germany since Wirecard’s demise ...