The European Securities and Markets Authority has criticised Germany’s financial regulator BaFin and the country’s accounting watchdog FREP for their “deficient” handling of the Wirecard accounting scandal. In a report published on Tuesday, in which the regulator detailed the result of its investigation into the Wirecard accounting fraud, Esma wrote that BaFin and FREP ignored red flags over Wirecard’s financial reporting for years, the Financial Times reported.

Apparel retailer Esprit announced Sunday the insolvency plans it developed for its six German subsidiaries have been approved by creditors and confirmed by the Dusseldorf court, FashionUnited reported. The process allows “a complete restart for the group” enabled by substantial debt forgiveness for the six German subsidiaries. The company said that after the final and official conclusion of the proceedings, expected by the end of the month, Esprit “will go back to normal operations”.

After 14 years of construction and six delayed openings, Berlin’s new airport is due to welcome its first passengers on Saturday. But the timing could not be worse, Reuters reported. The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the global aviation industry into its deepest ever crisis, and recovery is not expected for at least a couple of years. That has left the new airport, originally called Berlin Brandenburg Airport but now known by its code BER, looking for extra funds to help pay its debts. Built on the site of Schoenefeld airport in former East Berlin, BER has been beset by problems.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG told staff that winter schedule cutbacks announced last week will cause it to bench an additional 125 aircraft and temporarily close large parts of its administrative operations, Bloomberg News reported. The reduction will cut the carrier’s active fleet back to the level it operated in the 1970s, with the impact filtering through its operations, it said in a letter to employees seen by Bloomberg. Lufthansa had previously intended to use the planes in an already reduced schedule for the coming months, it said in the letter.

Germany’s economy is losing steam but will do slightly better than government forecasts as fears grow over rising coronavirus infections, according to the country’ s five leading research institutes, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product will contract by 5.4% in 2020 and grow 4.7% next year, the experts predicted in their latest bi-annual outlook published Wednesday. In their spring report, they expected a contraction of 4.2% this year and growth of 5.8% in 2021.

German banks should prepare for a surge in insolvencies as the coronavirus crisis pushes weaker companies over the edge and puts a question mark on the country’s property boom, the Bundesbank said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. With part of a government moratorium on insolvencies now expired, the German central bank said corporate insolvencies could rise by more than 35% by March to more than 6,000 per quarter, a level not seen since 2013.

Businesses across Singapore have been left scrambling to process payments for everything from hotel stays to telephone bills after the city-state’s regulator shut down the payment services of fraudulent German group Wirecard, the Financial Times reported. Cafés, restaurants, hotels and mobile network providers were left with no payment processing systems after the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the de facto central bank, late last month ordered Wirecard to cease payment services in the city-state. Some banks in Singapore had advised their clients to consider switching pay

Germany has presented plans to strengthen financial regulator BaFin’s powers and tighten accounting rules, one day before the start of a parliamentary probe into one of the country’s biggest corporate failures, Bloomberg News reported. The collapse of Wirecard AG this year exposed significant cracks in Germany’s financial oversight, as authorities failed to catch accounting issues at the digital-payments company despite ample warning. Slow decision-making and fragmented responsibilities appeared to allow the problems to go undetected.

Germany has an extra reason for cheer on Saturday when it celebrates 30 years as a united country: the vanished East German regime is picking up the tab, The Irish Times reported. After a long search – and lengthy court battle – Switzerland’s highest court has ordered Julius Bär bank to pay out 150 million francs (€140 million) that a subsidiary helped hide for East Germany’s ruling party in the dying days of the socialist state. It’s the latest tranche of money clawed back by German authorities in a 30-year game of financial hide-and-seek.

Germany is bracing for a surge in insolvencies starting Thursday, when a moratorium to help companies survive the coronavirus outbreak comes to an end, Bloomberg News reported. From this month, businesses that can’t pay their bills will again be forced to seek court protection. Since March, that hasn’t been the case for those that could pin their lack of liquidity on the pandemic and show they stood a good chance of overcoming the crisis. “Those that could be saved were rescued,” said Tillman Peeters, managing partner at Frankfurt-based financial advisory firm Falkensteg.