German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected accusations that she had lobbied for the insolvent tech company Wirecard.
Merkel was summoned by a parliamentary investigation committee in Berlin after allegations that she had spoken up for Wirecard during a trip to China in 2019.
But the German Chancellor defended her comments and said the company had received no special treatment.
Merkel said Wirecard's aim of entering the Chinese market overlapped with the best interests of the German economy.
The financial services company later collapsed in an accounting scandal in June 2020, less than a year after Merkel's visit to China.
Wirecard filed for bankruptcy after admitting that €1.9 billion euros supposedly held in trust accounts in the Philippines probably didn't exist.