An ex-partner at Marcum agreed to pay $75,000 to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) he failed to remediate numerous quality control deficiencies magnified by the audit firm’s special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) client boom.

Alfonse Gregory Giugliano, a former national assurance services leader at Marcum, agreed to cease and desist from further violations; a censure; and a three-year ban from serving in leadership, management, oversight, or supervisory positions at any registered public accounting firm, the SEC announced in a press release Tuesday.

Marcum was fined $13 million in June by the SEC and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) over alleged quality control and supervision failures stemming from its work with SPAC clients. Giugliano caused these failures, the SEC claimed.

The details: Giugliano oversaw quality control for Marcum’s public company practice for more than two decades, including relevant policies, procedures, monitoring, and direct or indirect supervision, according to the SEC’s order.

Starting in 2020, Marcum significantly increased its onboarding of SPAC clients, exposing pre-existing deficiencies in its quality control procedures that violated professional standards, according to the SEC. The nature of those violations—including their volume and range—reflected deficiencies relevant to and impacting Marcum’s “entire public company audit practice,” the order stated.

Giugliano was aware inspections by the PCAOB and the firm revealed numerous deficiencies in the quality control system, the SEC said, including in areas such as client acceptance, engagement partner supervision and review, audit documentation, and technical consultations.

Under Giugliano’s leadership, the firm did not sufficiently monitor the effectiveness of its policies and procedures or adequately communicate those policies and procedures to relevant personnel, the SEC said.

Giugliano did not respond to a request for comment. He agreed to the settlement without admitting or denying the agency’s findings.

Jeff Dale is Managing Editor, Editorial Projects and Analytics, at Compliance Week. He previously served as Compliance Week's Digital Editor and has worked as a copy editor at the Boston Herald and city editor at The Hour Publishing Co. in Norwalk, Conn.View full Profile

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