A German court announced on Thursday that it will hear a test case brought by former shareholders of the failed Wirecard payment service provider against former chief executive Markus Braun and 10 other defendants in November.
The Bavarian Supreme Court set a date for the case on November 22.
Wirecard collapsed in the summer of 2020 after €1.9 billion ($2.1 billion) allegedly held in South East Asian escrow accounts could not be traced, resulting in hundreds of civil lawsuits in addition to criminal proceedings.
The majority of the lawsuits are claims for damages brought by former shareholders and investors against Braun, who has been in custody since summer 2020, and the international consultancy firm Ernst and Young (EY), which audited the allegedly false Wirecard balance sheets.
The purpose of the November test case is to avoid hundreds of individual lawsuits. It is running separately from criminal proceedings opened in December 2022, in which Braun is the main defendant.
At the oral hearing of the test case, one of the issues will be the extent to which the objectives of the claims - in particular those against EY - are admissible in court.
