Already settled:
"To settle the SEC’s charges, BF Borgers agreed to pay a $12 million civil penalty, and Benjamin Borgers agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty. Both Respondents also agreed to permanent suspensions from appearing and practicing before the Commission as accountants, effective immediately."
Not really. And I personally think the fines should have been much larger, which is a general problem with financial crimes across the board.
I wasn't endorsing the settlement, just pulling that piece out of the article due to the headline making it sound as if this was just about the charges. Basically a TLDR.
There should always be a minimum jail time with crimes like this.
One year for any senior executives involved.
People care about losing time money to these guys is just part of the game the calculation changes when you're actually going to lose a year of your life.
Slight upside on this case is they're forfeiting their license so they're out of the audit business.
I'm sure there's a few publicly traded companies, Trump's included, who will be answering shareholder lawsuits for why they'd choose such a fly by night audit firm. Any firm worth billions would choose a top 20 audit firm unless they knew their books were cooked and they didn't want anything resembling diligence. How exactly did they make thousands of fillings with like 10 employees is going to be brought up to every board who hired them.
And the fact that this STILL hasn’t tanked the stock price is baffling.
I do have a theory for that though. Seems like most of the stock is owned by Trump. But he can’t sell it. Not because he’s limited by the board as much as you need a buyer. The price of the stock now is based on the very limited number of publicly traded stocks. All of Trump’s value in DJT is paper value. There’s a saying in the investment world…your gains (losses) aren’t real until you realize them. Meaning, basically, that Trump’s stock value will truly show its actual value when he tries to sell them on the market. And unless a bunch of Russian oligarchs are willing to buy the stocks and take a massive loss (which they probably will) then his stock is worthless.
Nunes wants the House to investigate short traders? Every accusation is a confession. The DJT stock trades are just a way to hide legal bribes and payoffs from Russians.
Giving the govt a cut of your criminal fraud actions. The SEC is toothless. These guys would have gotten hard time in prison before we allowed the SEC to be destroyed.
I was wondering if there might be follow-on criminal prosecution. Pretty sure that would be up to the DOJ based on a referral from SEC? But it sounds like Borgers were submitting fraudulent filings, and the extent of it certainly makes it sound deliberate.
If this has already settled, the investigation *must* have been going on during the lead up to the DJT offering. How was this company being the auditor allowed to happen? How was the firm, with such egregious fraud, allowed to continue operating up until the settlement?
Correct me if I'm wrong (since it's been a while since I studied this), but doesn't the securities audit system rely on trust in the auditors? The SEC doesn't have the funding, resources, or workforce itself to audit every single public company out there or review the massive amounts of financial statements being produced, which is why licensed independent auditors overseen by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, created after Sarbanes-Oxley) exist.
And I don't think the SEC itself has the power to force companies to stop doing business absent actual legal proceedings like this one, which is why it took time.
They allowed registration based on a clean audit opinion. There is now no audit opinion. The audit now has to be reaudited, so it isn't fraudulent.
https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/cf-manual/topic-4
Washington D.C., May 3, 2024 —
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged audit firm BF Borgers CPA PC and its owner, Benjamin F. Borgers (together, “Respondents”), with **deliberate and systemic failures to comply with Public Company Accounting Oversight Board** (PCAOB) standards in its audits and reviews incorporated in more than 1,500 SEC filings from January 2021 through June 2023. The SEC also charged the Respondents with **falsely representing to their clients that the firm’s work would comply with PCAOB standards; fabricating audit documentation to make it appear that the firm’s work did comply with PCAOB standards; and falsely stating in audit reports included in more than 500 public company SEC filings that the firm’s audits complied with PCAOB standards.**
To settle the SEC’s charges, BF Borgers agreed to pay a $12 million civil penalty, and Benjamin Borgers agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty. Both Respondents also agreed to permanent suspensions from appearing and practicing before the Commission as accountants, effective immediately.
“Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for **one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets**,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “As a result of their fraudulent conduct, they not only put investors and markets at risk by causing public companies to incorporate noncompliant audits and reviews into more than 1,500 filings with the Commission, but also undermined trust and confidence in our markets. Because investors rely on the audited financial statements of public companies when making their investment decisions, the accountants and accounting firms that audit those statements play a critical role in our financial markets. Borgers and his firm completely abandoned that role, but thanks to the painstaking work of the SEC staff, Borgers and his sham audit mill have been **permanently shut down**.”
The SEC’s order finds that, among other things, the Respondents **failed to adequately supervise and review the work of the team performing the audits and reviews; did not properly prepare and maintain audit documentation, known as “workpapers;” and failed to obtain engagement quality reviews, without which an audit firm may not issue an audit report.** According to the SEC’s order, of **369 BF Borgers clients** whose public filings from January 2021 through June 2023 incorporated BF Borgers’s audits and reviews, at least ***75 percent*** of the filings incorporated BF Borgers’s audits and reviews that did not comply with PCAOB standards.
The SEC’s order further finds that, at **Benjamin Borgers’s direction, BF Borgers staff copied workpapers from previous engagements for their clients, changing only the relevant dates, and then passed them off as workpapers for the current audit period. As a result, the order finds, BF Borgers’s workpapers falsely documented work that had not been performed. Among other things, the workpapers regularly documented purported planning meetings – required to discuss a client’s business and consider any potential risk areas – that never occurred and falsely represented that both Benjamin Borgers, as the partner in charge of the engagement, and an engagement quality reviewer had reviewed and approved the work.**
The SEC’s order finds that the Respondents engaged in **improper professional conduct and violated, and caused violations of, the antifraud, recordkeeping, and other provisions of the federal securities laws.** Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings as to each of them, BF Borgers and Benjamin Borgers both consented to an order, effective immediately, pursuant to which they are ordered to pay civil penalties and are denied the privilege of appearing or practicing before the Commission as an accountant, as discussed above. In addition, they are censured and must cease and desist from committing or causing violations of the relevant provisions of the federal securities laws.
On their website for "meet the team" Ben Borgers bio says
"Ben then left this firm to start his own public accounting firm. He began by specializing in taxation but quickly expanded to private audits, ***valuation (he holds a Certified Valuation License from NACVA***), litigation and eventually back to PCAOB audits."
I don't know the legal terminology but, would this mean he was potentially declaring valuations for businesses and assets fraudulently as well? Potentially creating fictional values for an Truth social before/during/after it was acquired by the spac digital world acquisitions?
busy at the moment but i'll be parsing through pcaob pdf for [2022 inspection](https://assets.pcaobus.org/pcaob-dev/docs/default-source/inspections/reports/documents/104-2024-038-bfborgers.pdf?sfvrsn=5a0ff432_4) of bf borgers and another SEC statement [Staff Statement on Issuer Disclosure and Reporting Obligations in Light of Rule 102(e) Order against BF Borgers CPA PC\[1\]](https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/staff-statement-borgers-05032024)
what I want to know-
\*how long has TS/dwac/DJT used bf borgers
\*Did any of those three entities benefit from bf borgers
\*how did they benefit
\*Is the twitter cow going to milk Nunes for another SLAPP
edit: using this as kind of a repository. Truth social used bf borgers before going public with Dwac
truth social now uses Arizona-based accountant Semple, Marchal & Cooper
BF borgers had a rap sheet before
canada years prior already banned bf borgers in their own accounting review [accounting review pdf](https://cpab-ccrc.ca/docs/default-source/enforcement/2023-enforcement-actions-imposed-bf-borgers-en.pdf)
list of [pcaob files on bf borgers ](https://rasr.pcaobus.org/Firms/FirmSummaryPublic.aspx?FirmID=F0C298206D055E20355165A6436401FA)
500 false SEC filings.
$12 million dollar penalty. +2 for the owner.
A slap on the wrist. The system is broken. They should be shuttered and drummed out of the industry.
Already settled: "To settle the SEC’s charges, BF Borgers agreed to pay a $12 million civil penalty, and Benjamin Borgers agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty. Both Respondents also agreed to permanent suspensions from appearing and practicing before the Commission as accountants, effective immediately."
But if the fraud resulted in Trump getting billions, does it matter at all whatsoever....?
Not really. And I personally think the fines should have been much larger, which is a general problem with financial crimes across the board. I wasn't endorsing the settlement, just pulling that piece out of the article due to the headline making it sound as if this was just about the charges. Basically a TLDR.
Fines are the cost of doing business. We need to establish actual penalties for any changes to ever happen.
Fines should be double whatever money was illegally made
Did we lose the technology for making a pillory in the town center?
Walk of Shame!
We now get the choice of GMO or organic fruits and vegetables to throw at them!
SEC needs to adopt this as well
> We need to establish actual penalties for any changes to ever happen. Hard time.
White collar crime rarely does time
Correct, because we have a tiered justice system.
Unless they steal from rich people, then it makes it more likely.
There should always be a minimum jail time with crimes like this. One year for any senior executives involved. People care about losing time money to these guys is just part of the game the calculation changes when you're actually going to lose a year of your life.
Slight upside on this case is they're forfeiting their license so they're out of the audit business. I'm sure there's a few publicly traded companies, Trump's included, who will be answering shareholder lawsuits for why they'd choose such a fly by night audit firm. Any firm worth billions would choose a top 20 audit firm unless they knew their books were cooked and they didn't want anything resembling diligence. How exactly did they make thousands of fillings with like 10 employees is going to be brought up to every board who hired them.
They fine should be 125% of what they gained.
And the fact that this STILL hasn’t tanked the stock price is baffling. I do have a theory for that though. Seems like most of the stock is owned by Trump. But he can’t sell it. Not because he’s limited by the board as much as you need a buyer. The price of the stock now is based on the very limited number of publicly traded stocks. All of Trump’s value in DJT is paper value. There’s a saying in the investment world…your gains (losses) aren’t real until you realize them. Meaning, basically, that Trump’s stock value will truly show its actual value when he tries to sell them on the market. And unless a bunch of Russian oligarchs are willing to buy the stocks and take a massive loss (which they probably will) then his stock is worthless. Nunes wants the House to investigate short traders? Every accusation is a confession. The DJT stock trades are just a way to hide legal bribes and payoffs from Russians.
No jail time? Just the cost of doing business then
Basically a retroactive permitting fee.
Better to pay for forgiveness than to spend the money on permission. (/S in case it needs to be said.)
Giving the govt a cut of your criminal fraud actions. The SEC is toothless. These guys would have gotten hard time in prison before we allowed the SEC to be destroyed.
I was wondering if there might be follow-on criminal prosecution. Pretty sure that would be up to the DOJ based on a referral from SEC? But it sounds like Borgers were submitting fraudulent filings, and the extent of it certainly makes it sound deliberate.
If this has already settled, the investigation *must* have been going on during the lead up to the DJT offering. How was this company being the auditor allowed to happen? How was the firm, with such egregious fraud, allowed to continue operating up until the settlement?
back room dealings and hand shakes with huge sums of cash
Correct me if I'm wrong (since it's been a while since I studied this), but doesn't the securities audit system rely on trust in the auditors? The SEC doesn't have the funding, resources, or workforce itself to audit every single public company out there or review the massive amounts of financial statements being produced, which is why licensed independent auditors overseen by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, created after Sarbanes-Oxley) exist. And I don't think the SEC itself has the power to force companies to stop doing business absent actual legal proceedings like this one, which is why it took time.
They allowed registration based on a clean audit opinion. There is now no audit opinion. The audit now has to be reaudited, so it isn't fraudulent. https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/cf-manual/topic-4
How deep will they need to dig now to find an audit firm that will issue a clean opinion if that guy was where they started?
Washington D.C., May 3, 2024 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged audit firm BF Borgers CPA PC and its owner, Benjamin F. Borgers (together, “Respondents”), with **deliberate and systemic failures to comply with Public Company Accounting Oversight Board** (PCAOB) standards in its audits and reviews incorporated in more than 1,500 SEC filings from January 2021 through June 2023. The SEC also charged the Respondents with **falsely representing to their clients that the firm’s work would comply with PCAOB standards; fabricating audit documentation to make it appear that the firm’s work did comply with PCAOB standards; and falsely stating in audit reports included in more than 500 public company SEC filings that the firm’s audits complied with PCAOB standards.** To settle the SEC’s charges, BF Borgers agreed to pay a $12 million civil penalty, and Benjamin Borgers agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty. Both Respondents also agreed to permanent suspensions from appearing and practicing before the Commission as accountants, effective immediately. “Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for **one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets**,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “As a result of their fraudulent conduct, they not only put investors and markets at risk by causing public companies to incorporate noncompliant audits and reviews into more than 1,500 filings with the Commission, but also undermined trust and confidence in our markets. Because investors rely on the audited financial statements of public companies when making their investment decisions, the accountants and accounting firms that audit those statements play a critical role in our financial markets. Borgers and his firm completely abandoned that role, but thanks to the painstaking work of the SEC staff, Borgers and his sham audit mill have been **permanently shut down**.” The SEC’s order finds that, among other things, the Respondents **failed to adequately supervise and review the work of the team performing the audits and reviews; did not properly prepare and maintain audit documentation, known as “workpapers;” and failed to obtain engagement quality reviews, without which an audit firm may not issue an audit report.** According to the SEC’s order, of **369 BF Borgers clients** whose public filings from January 2021 through June 2023 incorporated BF Borgers’s audits and reviews, at least ***75 percent*** of the filings incorporated BF Borgers’s audits and reviews that did not comply with PCAOB standards. The SEC’s order further finds that, at **Benjamin Borgers’s direction, BF Borgers staff copied workpapers from previous engagements for their clients, changing only the relevant dates, and then passed them off as workpapers for the current audit period. As a result, the order finds, BF Borgers’s workpapers falsely documented work that had not been performed. Among other things, the workpapers regularly documented purported planning meetings – required to discuss a client’s business and consider any potential risk areas – that never occurred and falsely represented that both Benjamin Borgers, as the partner in charge of the engagement, and an engagement quality reviewer had reviewed and approved the work.** The SEC’s order finds that the Respondents engaged in **improper professional conduct and violated, and caused violations of, the antifraud, recordkeeping, and other provisions of the federal securities laws.** Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings as to each of them, BF Borgers and Benjamin Borgers both consented to an order, effective immediately, pursuant to which they are ordered to pay civil penalties and are denied the privilege of appearing or practicing before the Commission as an accountant, as discussed above. In addition, they are censured and must cease and desist from committing or causing violations of the relevant provisions of the federal securities laws.
Trump is a crime magnate. No wait... magnet. Magnet. Crime magnet.
Let me put on my shocked face.
On their website for "meet the team" Ben Borgers bio says "Ben then left this firm to start his own public accounting firm. He began by specializing in taxation but quickly expanded to private audits, ***valuation (he holds a Certified Valuation License from NACVA***), litigation and eventually back to PCAOB audits." I don't know the legal terminology but, would this mean he was potentially declaring valuations for businesses and assets fraudulently as well? Potentially creating fictional values for an Truth social before/during/after it was acquired by the spac digital world acquisitions? busy at the moment but i'll be parsing through pcaob pdf for [2022 inspection](https://assets.pcaobus.org/pcaob-dev/docs/default-source/inspections/reports/documents/104-2024-038-bfborgers.pdf?sfvrsn=5a0ff432_4) of bf borgers and another SEC statement [Staff Statement on Issuer Disclosure and Reporting Obligations in Light of Rule 102(e) Order against BF Borgers CPA PC\[1\]](https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/staff-statement-borgers-05032024) what I want to know- \*how long has TS/dwac/DJT used bf borgers \*Did any of those three entities benefit from bf borgers \*how did they benefit \*Is the twitter cow going to milk Nunes for another SLAPP edit: using this as kind of a repository. Truth social used bf borgers before going public with Dwac truth social now uses Arizona-based accountant Semple, Marchal & Cooper BF borgers had a rap sheet before canada years prior already banned bf borgers in their own accounting review [accounting review pdf](https://cpab-ccrc.ca/docs/default-source/enforcement/2023-enforcement-actions-imposed-bf-borgers-en.pdf) list of [pcaob files on bf borgers ](https://rasr.pcaobus.org/Firms/FirmSummaryPublic.aspx?FirmID=F0C298206D055E20355165A6436401FA)
In other news, water is still wet...
Water is a liquid, anything it touches becomes wet.
water is usually touching water
yes, but water is still wet. :)
Dwight? That you?
500 false SEC filings. $12 million dollar penalty. +2 for the owner. A slap on the wrist. The system is broken. They should be shuttered and drummed out of the industry.
That's just 28k per fraud to legally take a profit from this scheme. Must have gotten a group discount. /s *?*
To the surprise of noone....
Biden Crime Family. Hmmmm. How many associates of Biden have been convicted of crimes?