The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) обвинила Friedman LLP, the accounting firm that provided auditing services to the issuer of the stablecoin Tether in 2017, with “serial violations of the federal securities laws” and “misconduct.”
The agency found that from 2017 to 2020, in audits of the Chinese grocery chain iFresh and another unnamed firm, Friedman LLP did not comply with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
The auditor is charged with careless accounting practices, including his inability to “respond to fraud risk” and to “exercise due professional care and professional skepticism.”
Although the document does not directly mention Tether, Friedman LLP provided services to it from May 2017 to January 2018, until the professional relationship was terminated due to the audit not being conducted quickly enough.
To settle the SEC’s claims, Friedman LLP will pay more than $1.5 million in monetary compensation and will conduct additional staff training.
Earlier, in February 2021, cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and Tether reached an agreement with the New York Attorney General’s office over the company’s activities related to the loss of $850 million. As part of the settlement, Bitfinex and Tether transferred $18.5 million to the State of New York.
Subsequently the companies paid civil penalties to the CFTC totaling $42.5 million.
Last week a court in New York ordered Tether Limited to provide financial documents for assessing the reserves of the stablecoin USDT in a case about possible market manipulation.
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