Prager Metis agrees to pay $2M over failed audits, including FTX
By Aaron Nicodemus2024-09-19T15:59:00
Waves of fallout from the collapse of cryptocurrency trading platform FTX continue to ripple, as accounting firm Prager Metis has learned.
The firm agreed to pay nearly $2 million in penalties to settle two enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to Prager Metis’ audit work for FTX and other companies. The SEC said the firm committed “negligence-based fraud” by falsely represented that its audits of FTX complied with generally accepted accounting standards (GAAS), and violated its own policies and procedures by not adequately assessing whether it had the competency to audit FTX, the agency announced in a press release Tuesday.
The biggest problem with Prager Metis’ audit of FTX, the SEC said, was that the firm apparently did not fully understand risks posed by the financially intertwined relationship between FTX and Alameda Research, a crypto research fund controlled by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. That connection, and the co-mingling of funds between the two entities, would prove to be FTX’s undoing and were the focus of a $12.7 billion settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in August.