Pav Gill is a Singaporean lawyer who was the whistleblower that uncovered the Wirecard scandal, one of the largest corporate frauds in history. Gill was the former Singapore-based legal head for Wirecard's Asia-Pacific region. [1] [2]
Born in Singapore, Gill is the only child of a first-generation Sikh immigrant single mother, and grew up in subsidized housing. He attended Victoria School and graduated in law from the National University of Singapore in 2008. In September 2017, he was hired by Wirecard as their first in-house Head of Legal for Asia-Pacific, covering 11 markets in the region. [3] [4]
In September 2023, Gill founded the whistleblowing platform, Confide Platform, to facilitate the detection and reporting of misconduct at companies. [5]
Gill has been awarded the ACFE Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award and the Blueprint for Free Speech Special Recognition Award, for integrity and bravery in the public interest. [5]
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trading as EY, is a multinational professional services partnership. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms. It primarily provides assurance, tax, information technology services, consulting, and advisory services to its clients.
DBS Bank Limited is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered at the Marina Bay Financial Centre in the Marina Bay district of Singapore. The bank was previously known as The Development Bank of Singapore Limited, which "DBS" was derived from, before the present abbreviated name was adopted on 21 July 2003 to reflect its role as a global bank. It is one of the "Big Three" local banks in Singapore, along with Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and United Overseas Bank (UOB).
Kaplan, Inc. is an international educational services company that provides educational and training services to colleges, universities, businesses and individuals around the world. Founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan, the company offers a variety of test preparation, certifications, and student support services. The company is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Graham Holdings Company.
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited, abbreviated as OCBC, is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered at the OCBC Centre.
The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, better known by its abbreviation BaFin, is Germany's integrated financial regulatory authority. Since 2014, it has been Germany's national competent authority within European Banking Supervision. It is an independent federal institution with headquarters in Bonn and Frankfurt and falls under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Finance. BaFin supervises about 2,700 banks, 800 financial services institutions, and over 700 insurance undertakings.
Wirecard AG is an insolvent German payment processor and financial services provider whose former CEO, COO, two board members, and other executives have been arrested or otherwise implicated in criminal proceedings. In June 2020, the company announced that €1.9 billion in cash was missing. It owed €3.2 billion in debt. In November 2020, the company was dismantled after it sold the assets of its main business unit to Santander Group for €100 million. Other assets, including its North American, UK and Brazilian units had been previously sold at nondisclosed prices. The company offered electronic payment transaction services and risk management, and issued and processed physical and virtual cards. As of 2017, the company was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and was a part of the DAX stock index from September 2018 to August 2020.
CMC Markets is a UK-based financial services company that offers online trading in shares, spread betting, contracts for difference (CFDs) and foreign exchange across world markets. CMC is headquartered in London, with hubs in Sydney and Singapore. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Clare Rewcastle Brown is a British environmental and anti-corruption journalist and activist who uncovered the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. Born in the former British Crown Colony of Sarawak, she is the founder and operator of the Sarawak Report blog and Radio Free Sarawak which have exposed corruption driving deforestation and human rights violations in that state along with failures in the global financial systems which facilitate kleptocracy. In 2015 she shifted her focus to the federal government of Malaysia and the country's prime minister, Najib Razak. Her blog Sarawak Report gained widespread recognition for its original and early exposure of the 1MDB scandal, which contributed to widespread disillusionment with Najib's Barisan Nasional government, culminating in its loss in the 2018 elections.
Keith Bristow QPM served as the first Director-General of the National Crime Agency from 2011 to 2016. He was formerly the Chief Constable of Warwickshire Police, and was appointed in October 2011 to oversee the creation of the NCA and, following its launch in 2013, led the organisation in its mission to cut serious and organised crime in the UK. Between 2011 and 2013, Bristow built and designed the agency, from concept to full operational crime-fighting, working closely with the Government, global partners and participating in the UK National Security Council. He is the former Vice Chairman of Arcanum, a global strategic intelligence company and a subsidiary of Magellan Investment Holdings and currently Executive Chairman of Heligan Group.
Allen & Gledhill LLP is a Singaporean law firm with a regional network of associate firms and offices. As the largest of Big Four law firms in Singapore, the firm is a regional market leader in many practices, particularly banking and finance, capital markets, corporate law, M&A law, and other transactional and advisory matters. The firm provides legal services to local companies and MNCs, financial institutions, and individual clients.
According to a 2013 public survey in Malaysia by Transparency International, a majority of the surveyed households perceived Malaysian political parties to be highly corrupt. A quarter of the surveyed households consider the government's efforts in the fight against corruption to be ineffective. Corruption in Malaysia generally involves political connections still playing an important role in the outcome of public tenders.
Nium is a Singapore-headquartered cross-border payments company. Initially founded by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham, and launched as a consumer-remittance platform Instarem in 2014. In 2016, the company introduced its B2B payments platform and rebranded as Nium in 2019, subsequently elevating Pratik Gandhi to co-founder in 2021. However, Gandhi left Nium in October 2023, around the time Nium's Chief Product Officer also left the company and Nium announced a layoff of over 10% of its global staff.
Markus Braun is an Austrian tech investor, the former CEO and CTO at the now insolvent payment processor, Wirecard AG from January 2002 until his resignation and arrest in June 2020. Braun stepped down from Wirecard amidst fraud allegations, but has denied any wrongdoing. Braun was in pre-trial detention at the Augsburg-Gablingen prison and was transferred to Stadelheim prison in Munich on November 10, 2022. On December 8, 2022, the criminal proceedings against him and two other former Wirecard managers began at the Munich regional court. Court cases were pending as of 2024.
The Wirecard scandal was a series of corrupt business practices and fraudulent financial reporting that led to the insolvency of Wirecard, a payment processor and financial services provider, headquartered in Munich, Germany. The company was part of the DAX index. They offered customers electronic payment transaction and risk management services, as well as the issuance and processing of physical cards. The subsidiary, Wirecard Bank AG, held a banking license and had contracts with multiple international financial services companies.
Jan Marsalek is an Austrian fugitive former businessman and suspected spy operative for Russia. From 2010 to 2020, he was chief operating officer of the German payment processing firm Wirecard, which became insolvent and collapsed in 2020. Marsalek was responsible for Wirecard's business in Asia, where the company admitted that nearly €2 billion in cash it supposedly held did not exist.
James H. Freis Jr. is an American lawyer and financial industry executive who from 2007 to 2012 served as the United States Department of the Treasury's 6th Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), where he expanded the scope of the anti-money laundering regulations and became known for spearheading efforts to combat fraud and implementing modern data analysis. He was an attorney and central banker at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank for International Settlements.
Akshay Naheta is an Indian-born British business executive. He is the Founder & CEO of Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), a decentralized finance startup focusing on stablecoin technology and other linked services.
Dan McCrum is an English journalist who is an investigative journalist for the Financial Times, having joined the newspaper in 2007. He is best known for his investigation into the Wirecard scandal between 2014 and 2020. McCrum's 2022 book on the scandal Money Men: A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth was adapted by Netflix as the documentary called Skandal!.
Toku is a cloud communications and customer experience solutions provider based in Singapore.