Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The tiny Arizona business auditing Donald Trump\u2019s media company was kicked out of a national accountancy alliance because it took on work for him, a lawsuit claims.Phoenix-based Semple, Marchal & Cooper stepped in as auditor for Trump\u2019s social media business in May after its previous accounting firm was shut down for running what regulators called a \u201cmassive fraud\u201d. The new client immediately caused tension with accountancy giant BDO, which provided software and training to SM&C under the terms of an alliance of firms dating back to 1994, according to a lawsuit filed by Semple against BDO Alliance USA and the BDO executive in charge of the partnership.BDO, the sixth-largest US accounting firm by revenue, said that it would terminate Semple\u2019s membership of the alliance unless it dropped Trump Media & Technology Group as a client, the suit claims. It terminated the relationship as of June 30 2024. According to the lawsuit, when he was asked why BDO was angered that SM&C had taken on TMTG as a client, BDO executive Michael Horwitz \u201cyelled in response, \u2018Because he [the principal shareholder] is a criminal!\u2019\u201dAt the time of Semple\u2019s appointment, Trump was on trial in New York accused of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to the porn actor Stormy Daniels. He was eventually convicted. His main business, the Trump Organization, had also been convicted of fraud in an unrelated civil case.Trump owns a majority stake in TMTG, which runs the social media platform Truth Social and has had difficulty holding on to an auditor. Its first pick, Withum, quit after less than a year after deciding it did not want to be associated with a Trump business venture, the Financial Times reported.BF Borgers, the tiny Colorado firm that took TMTG as a client after Withum\u2019s stepped away, was shut down by the Securities and Exchange Commission because it did barely any work to verify its clients\u2019 financial statements, perpetrating a \u201cmassive fraud\u201d on those who used its services and the investing public, the SEC said.TMTG is among just a handful of public companies SM&C has audited, and significantly larger than the one public company it listed as a client earlier in 2024. The firm has 32 staff, according to a regulatory filing, including 20 accountants.TMTG, listed on Nasdaq, has a market capitalisation of more than $5bn.BDO has more than 300 US accounting firms in its alliance, bestowing practical support, business referrals and marketing benefits on tiny firms without its national reach.\u201cWhile members are independent firms charged with their own professional decision making, BDO Alliance USA has the rarely used right to sever that relationship when quality and other issues are present, including in a context where a significant and complex engagement is undertaken with limited experience and staffing,\u201d the alliance said in a statement.It said that SM&C\u2019s allegations were \u201cfrivolous and lack any foundation in the reality of why BDO Alliance USA chose to exercise its right to sever its relationship\u201d.SM&C founder Robert Semple said his firm had \u201cno comment on the complaint, as it is self-explanatory\u201d. He added: \u201cBDO\u2019s comments are untrue and defamatory and will be dealt with in our amended complaint.\u201dSM&C\u2019s suit claims BDO \u201cengaged in misconduct by demanding in bad faith\u201d that it \u201ccompromise its independence\u201d by allowing BDO\u2019s political views to \u201cinfect\u201d SM&C\u2019s role as an auditor of a publicly traded company.Its termination from the alliance meant it was \u201cforced to rework all its materials and documents and retrain its employees at significant financial cost\u201d, it said, and led to the false implication that it had engaged in misconduct.TMTG did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The tiny Arizona business auditing Donald Trump\u2019s media company was kicked out of a national accountancy alliance because it took on work for him, a lawsuit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-295541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}