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Matthias Knab, Opalesque:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Prager Metis CPAs, LLC (Prager) and its California professional services firm, Prager Metis CPAs LLP, (collectively, the Prager Entities) agreed to pay $1.95 million to resolve two actions alleging misconduct in its audits of the now-defunct crypto asset trading platform, FTX, and auditor independence violations.

In one of the actions, the SEC alleges that Prager misrepresented its compliance with auditing standards regarding FTX. According to the SEC's complaint, from February 2021 to April 2022, Prager issued two audit reports for FTX that falsely misrepresented that the audits complied with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS). The SEC alleges that Prager failed to follow GAAS and its own policies and procedures by, among other deficiencies, not adequately assessing whether it had the competency and resources to undertake the audit of FTX. According to the complaint, this quality control failure led to Prager failing to comply with GAAS in multiple aspects of the audit-most significantly by failing to understand the increased risk stemming from the relationship between FTX and Alameda Research LLC, a crypto hedge fund controlled by FTX's CEO.

The SEC's complaint charges Prager with negligence-based fraud. Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, Prager agreed to permanent injunctions, to pay a $745,000 civil penalty, and to undertake remedial act......................

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