BDO USA LLP and its parent, the ex- auditors of indicted financier R. Allen Stanford's former company, were sued for $10.7 billion by investors claiming BDO ignored signs of potential fraud. "Despite the pervasive fraud that infected Stanford Financial Group's operations, BDO repeatedly issued unqualified audit opinions on its Stanford client's annual financial statements," Edward Snyder, a lawyer for Stanford investors, said in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Dallas.
Stanford's companies "needed BDO's unqualified audit opinions to satisfy securities regulators and to continue recommending" sales of the allegedly bogus certificates of deposit at Stanford International Bank Ltd. in Antigua, the investors said in the complaint.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulators seized Stanford's operations in February 2009 on allegations they were involved in a "massive Ponzi scheme" that defrauded investors of more than $7 billion.
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