The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) today announced a settled disciplinary order(PDF) sanctioning PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (“PwC Australia” or the “Firm”) for violations of PCAOB rules and quality control standards. Specifically, the sanctions address the Firm’s failure to timely report the initiation and conclusion of proceedings against the Firm by the Australian Tax Practitioners Board (TPB). The TPB proceedings related…
On Thursday, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years for his crimes. Ellison, Singh and Wang will learn in the coming months if they too will go to prison. The trio pleaded guilty to their roles in the yearslong wrongdoing at FTX and sister trading firm Alameda Research, and cooperated with the US government in its case against Bankman-Fried. “In the…
Inmates can make ceramics or crochet at a federal prison in Lompoc, Calif. At a federal prison in Mendota, a few hours away, inmates can have a harmonica or play basketball on one of five facility courts. Those prisons represent possible landing places for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who will in coming months report to begin serving his 25-year sentence, imposed…
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange who was convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that upended the crypto industry and became a cautionary tale of greed and hubris. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years that federal prosecutors…
As ESG-related litigation has developed, one definitive trend has been the emergence of litigation involving allegations of “greenwashing” – that is, claims alleging that companies overstated their ESG credentials in order to win business, attract customers, or score virtue points. To date, the greenwashing claims have emerged primarily in the U.S. and Europe. Now, Australia is getting into the act,…
The US and UK are reviewing more than $20 billion of cryptocurrency transactions that passed through a Russia-based virtual exchange, according to people familiar with the matter, as part of allied efforts to crack down on the sanctions evasion that’s supporting Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. The payments under scrutiny went through Moscow-based crypto exchange Garantex using the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency…
In a ruling, opens new tab on Tuesday that allows the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to proceed with its case against crypto exchange Coinbase, a Manhattan federal judge threw a bucket of ice-cold water on the crypto industry’s criticism of the SEC’s strategy of setting policy through enforcement actions. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of Manhattan held that…
Anonymous Audit Firm Sues PCAOB to Block ‘Excessively Intrusive and Burdensome’ Investigative Demand
An audit firm subject to a PCAOB investigation over the auditing of crypto assets on March 27, 2024, sued the board in US district court to halt what it framed as an ‘excessively intrusive and burdensome’ document demand. *** The complaint describes the plaintiff as a registered public accounting firm that has received six accounting board demands (ABDs) from the…
But Bankman-Fried’s case revealed a version of the former billionaire that’s more disturbing—and especially troubling for an industry bent on sweeping the whole episode under the beanbag. According to an examination of trial testimony, thousands of pages of exhibits and interviews with insiders, Bankman-Fried’s rise appeared to rely on tricking customers, investors and banks almost from the very beginning. His…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice are probing Chemours Co. after the chemical company put three of its top executives on leave amid an investigation into its accounting practices. “Chemours is cooperating with requests for information by the SEC and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York concerning the results…