Wirecard Echoes in Austrian Bank Fraud Raise Awkward Questions
- Case has broad implications for governance and supervision
- Multiple lines of defense failed to uncover simple scheme
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Austria has experienced plenty of scandalous bank failures in the past decade, not least at Hypo Alpe Adria, the house lender of the late Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider.
Yet the fraud that brought down tiny Commerzialbank Mattersburg im Burgenland AG raises questions for financial regulators and auditors that have uncomfortable echoes of the Wirecard AG debacle in neighboring Germany.