BF Borgers, the accounting firm that handles Trump Media & Technology Group’s financial audits, was slapped with fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commision for allegedly running a vast operation to misrepresent their auditing process.
According to a Friday statement from the SEC, at least 75% of Borgers’ audits on the 369 companies it worked with from January 2021 through June 2023 were not compliant with federal regulations. The SEC says that the firm didn’t properly maintain documentation of their work, and alleges that it created fraudulent documentation on several occasions.
“Thanks to the painstaking work of the SEC staff, Borgers and his sham audit mill have been permanently shut down,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said in the statement.
Owner Benjamin Borgers and his firm agreed to pay $14 million and face a permanent suspension from practicing accounting in a settlement with the federal regulators, which didn’t require an admission of guilt. Each of Borgers’ clients will be forced to find new auditors, per the SEC.
The filing makes no mention of Trump Media, which told CNN that it intends to find a new accounting partner per the SEC order. BF Borgers has worked with Trump Media since before it became a public company, and audited its April prospectus to issue more shares.
Since Trump Media was not a public company during the scope of the SEC’s investigation, its past filings were not reviewed for fraudulent accounting practices.
Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, was one of the firm’s highest valued clients, currently clocking in at a whopping $6.6 billion dollar valuation despite minimal revenue. While the SEC said Trump Media and others don’t necessarily need to amend filings that Borgers worked on, it advised that forms be amended “to address any reporting deficiencies.”
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