The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged the auditor of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. with “massive fraud.”
Former President Donald Trump owns the majority of the American media and technology company.
The accounting firm BF Borgers CPA and its owner, Benjamin Borgers, have been permanently banned from practicing as accountants and have been fined $14 million.
Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, saw a 9% drop in stock price since trading began Friday, according to CNBC:
The agency accused BF Borgers and its owner of “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,” according to a press release.
The respondents also were charged with falsely telling clients that the auditor's work would comply with PCAOB standards, with fabricating audit documents to make it seem that the work did comply with those 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,” the release said.
“Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets,” SEC Enforcement Division Director Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.
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A spokeswoman for Trump Media did not immediately respond to comment on the SEC complaint.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
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