Investors file lawsuit against former auditors of indicted Texas financier Allen Standford
Published:Saturday | May 28, 2011 | 11:06 AM
Investors in the company headed by indicted Texas financier Allen Stanford have filed a $10.7 billion US dollar lawsuit against the former auditors claiming they ignored signs of potential fraud.
The suit alleges that despite the pervasive fraud that infected Stanford Financial Group’s operations the firm, BDO USA, repeatedly issued unqualified audit opinions on Stanford annual financial statements.
In the complaint, the investors say that Stanford’s companies needed BDO’s unqualified audit opinions to satisfy securities regulators and to continue recommending sales of the alleged certificates of deposit issued at Stanford International Bank in Antigua.
In February 2009, US Securities and Exchange Commission regulators seized Stanford’s operations, alleging that they were involved in a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of more than $7 billion US dollars.
Stanford has been jailed since June 2009 and is scheduled for trial in a Houston, Texas, federal court in September.