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The auditing firm for Trump Media and the auditor’s owner were charged Friday with “massive fraud” by the Securities and Exchange Commission for work that affected more than 1,500 SEC filings the federal regulator announced.
The auditor, BF Borgers CPA and its owner Benjamin Borgers have agreed to be permanently suspended from practicing as accountants before the SEC, and also agreed to pay a combined $14 million in civil penalties, with admitting or denying the allegations, the SEC said.
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.
The share price of Trump Media, which owns the Truth Social app, was down 9% shortly after trading began Friday.
A spokeswoman for Trump Media did not immediately respond to comment on the SEC complaint.
– Additional reporting by CNBC’s Brian Schwartz
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