The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused the auditor of Donald Trump’s social media company of significant fraud, impacting over 1,500 regulatory filings.
BF Borgers CPA PC and its founder, Benjamin Borgers, will face permanent suspension from practicing as accountants before the SEC and will pay fines totaling $14 million to resolve the investigation, the SEC announced in a Friday release.
“Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets,” stated Gurbir Grewal, the SEC’s enforcement chief.
“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.”
BF Borgers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The firm has been one of the most prolific auditors in the US, but its most recent audits were found to have a 100% deficiency rate. The SEC described false audit work papers, nonexistent work, and fabricated meetings in its order.
The settlement did not specify if Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. was among the companies affected by the alleged fraud. Trump Media stated that it anticipates collaborating with new auditing partners following the SEC’s order.
Trump Media has engaged the services of the Colorado-based accounting firm since 2022, even after going public through a merger with Digital World Acquisitions Corp.
Inspections by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board have not yet covered BF Borgers’ audits of Trump Media.
Trump’s social media company was BF Borgers’ largest client by market capitalization. Although the firm is one of the busiest in the US, over 80% of its clients trade over-the-counter, indicating they do not meet the listing requirements of major exchanges, according to research firm Ideagen Audit Analytics.
