Birgit Jennen

The ministers endorsed an overhaul of how countries tax big corporations, setting it for approval by heads of state at a summit later this month.

European officials are considering a proposal from the Biden administration to make companies with at least $20 billion in annual revenue pay more of their tax bill in places they operate, while being less enthused that the U.S. offer would limit levies to just 100 firms.

Initial enthusiasm for change inspired by the country’s biggest postwar accounting scandal is waning in the face of political opposition.

The U.S. has dropped a key demand in negotiations over digital taxation of technology companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc., lifting a barrier that had raised transatlantic trade tensions and prevented an international deal.

Germany wants to bolster the expertise at its top financial regulator to prevent a repeat of the Wirecard scandal that exposed significant cracks in the country’s oversight.

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said President Joe Biden’s administration has shown a readiness to clinch an agreement on how to tax global tech companies, potentially overcoming an American block and paving the way for an accord later this year.

The head of Germany’s accounting regulator faces scrutiny after telling a parliamentary committee that he traded Wirecard AG shares while his agency was reviewing the now bankrupt payment company’s external audits.

Deutsche Bank AG’s top accounting executive, Andreas Loetscher, is being investigated over his role as the auditor of Wirecard AG while he was with his former firm, Ernst & Young, two people familiar with the matter said.

Wirecard AG’s former chief executive officer appeared in public for the first time since his July detention in connection with the collapse of the electronic payment company, but lawmakers hoping for insights from the disgraced manager were left disappointed.

KfW, Germany’s third-largest bank by assets, may drop Ernst & Young as auditor as EY continues to be plagued by its role in the country’s Wirecard accounting scandal.

Germany’s blame game over Wirecard AG’s collapse is focusing on the question of why authorities failed to take a harder look at the payments company before it became the country’s biggest accounting scandal in living memory.