German prosecutors investigating FT journalist after Wirecard reporting

German prosecutors said on Monday they were investigating a Financial Times journalist, confirming that they had widened a probe into a possible violation of securities trading rules, reports Arno Schuetze of Reuters.

Schuetze reports, “The Financial Times (FT) rejected as ‘baseless and false’ any allegations against the newspaper or its journalists of market manipulation or unethical reporting relating to Wirecard.

“A spokeswoman for the Munich prosecutors said their inquiry, which was in response to a criminal complaint, was at an early stage and declined to give any further details.

“Bafin, Germany’s financial markets regulator, said the ban on ‘shorting’ Wirecard was a first for an individual stock, although it outlawed shorting of bank shares in 2008. Short selling is when an investor borrows shares to sell in the hope of being able to buy them back later at a lower price.

“The London-based FT has published a series of reports alleging fraud and creative accounting at Wirecard, which the Munich-based firm has rejected as defamatory.”

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