A legal probe requested by the Financial Times has not found any evidence that reporters from the British newspaper have had arrangements with traders to write negative articles about German financial technology firm Wirecard AG in order to manipulate its share price, Handelsblatt reported.
The FT had tasked law firm RPC to conduct the investigation, Handelsblatt said. Earlier in 2019, the German paper reported that Wirecard had urged the FT to launch the internal probe as there was evidence suggesting that FT reporters had been speaking with short sellers before publishing articles about the German company.
The FT published a series of articles about alleged misconduct at Wirecard, which triggered several sharp drops in the company's shares. Both the German financial supervisory authority BaFin and Wirecard have harbored suspicions that short sellers have taken advantage of the share price drops, Handelsblatt said.
