Germany's huge Wirecard fraud trial to start in December
Wirecard's former CEO Markus Braun, charged with fraud in Germany's biggest-ever accounting scandal, will go on trial from December 8, a court said Wednesday.
Braun stands accused of "commercial gang fraud", embezzlement and market manipulation for his role in Wirecard's spectacular collapse in 2020. The higher regional court in Munich said it had scheduled 100 court dates for the mammoth trial.
Once the standard-bearer for the German tech industry, Wirecard plunged into chaos in June 2020 after admitting that 1.9 billion euros ($1.9 billion) missing from its balance sheets likely didn't exist.
The scandal was "unparalleled" in Germany's post-war history, according to then finance minister Olaf Scholz, who is now chancellor.
Braun, who has been in custody for over two years, denies the allegations. Two other Wirecard managers, accounting boss Stephan von Erffa and Oliver Bellenhaus, the former head of a Wirecard's Dubai subsidiary, were also charged with fraud last March.
The trio had worked "in an industrial fashion" to commit the fraud, German prosecutors said at the time. The accused face "several years" in prison if found guilty, they added.
Wirecard's chief operating officer
Jan Marsalek, who has been on the run since the firm's collapse, is still wanted by German prosecutors.
He was reported earlier this year to be hiding out in Moscow.
The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a 70-million-U.S. dollar loan to Cambodia to support government efforts to deepen reforms in upper secondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education across the country, the lender said in a press statement on Monday.
The Science and Technology Project in Upper Secondary Education will help Cambodia develop highquality human resources, especially in the STEM field, as the country aspires to transform its economy to a technology-driven and knowledge-based economy, the statement said.
"Given the significant STEM skills gap, the project will help to strengthen Cambodia's education system by upgrading its traditional STEM education to keep up with the growing demand for a highly qualified labor force," said ADB principal education specialist for Southeast Asia Lynnette Perez.
"This will be instrumental for Cambodia to integrate 21st-century skills, knowledge, and competencies into its STEM education. This would improve student proficiency in critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration, all of which are needed for a knowledge-based economy," she added.
The project will put in place standards for quality education for all upper secondary schools, upgrade facilities, and provide essential education technology and STEM equipment in Cambodia, the statement said.
It's never been a better time to be in the red in Hong Kong. The financial hub plans to ease its listing rules to allow more firms that have never turned a profit to go public as part of a plan to attract at least 100 innovative tech firms to list on the local bourse in the next five years.
Unprofitable biotech and information technology (IT) firms have been allowed to list in Hong Kong since 2018.
Now, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) wants to widen the category to include loss-making firms involved in next-generation technologies including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, driverless cars and smart-manufacturing equipment makers, among others, to raise capital on the bourse.