Wirecard shares have slumped by 15% after the Financial Times published documents on alleged attempts to inflate sales and profits at its businesses in Dubai and Ireland.
The report is the latest in a series of rolling investigations by the newspaper, which earlier this year printed allegations of fraud and dodgy accounting at Wirecard's Singapore office.
The latest revelations come from internal company spreadsheets and related correspondence between members of Wirecard’s finance team, which appear to indicate an effort to mislead EY on the true state of the P&L book at subsidiaries in Dubai and Ireland.
Wirecard has denied the FT’s allegations, saying that although Dubai-based subsidiary Card Systems was not individually audited, its books had undergone “full-scope” scrutiny by EY.
In a statement, the company says: "Wirecard categorically rejects these allegations of impropriety. Today’s article by the Financial Times is a compilation of a number of false and misleading allegations, which Dan McCrum had raised before in a series of defamatory articles, and which were already fully refuted before.
"It is regrettable that the Financial Times should still choose to publish such an irresponsible article, particularly in circumstances where we have provided to the FT, via its lawyers, prima facie evidence of collusion with short sellers which casts doubt upon its motivation in publishing its articles."