Deloitte Agrees to Fork Over $149.5 Million for Its Crappy Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Audits
The Justice Department announced that Deloitte would pay a $149.5 million fine to put “potential False Claims Act liability” to bed for its role as the auditor of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., the failed mortgage originator. Justice alleged that “Deloitte’s audits knowingly deviated from applicable auditing standards and therefore failed to detect TBW’s […]
PwC Has Had Enough Courtroom Fun
PwC is settling the lawsuit brought by the bankruptcy trustee of mortgage behemoth Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, putting speculation to rest that a verdict in the $5.5 billion lawsuit for the plaintiff could be the beginning of the end for the firm.
PwC Is Having a Really Rough November Already
Yeah so first this happened: On Wednesday the FDIC, as receiver for the Colonial Bank of Montgomery, Alabama, sued PricewaterhouseCoopers and Crowe Horwath in federal court in Montgomery, claiming that they committed professional malpractice and breach of contract by failing to detect that two Colonial employees helped the notorious (and defunct) mortgage lender Taylor Bean […]
Ex-CFO of Taylor, Bean, & Whitaker Faces Up to Ten Years Without PeiWei
The Department of Justice trumpeted the guilty plea of Delton de Armas, the former CFO of Taylor, Bean, & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. today, marking the 8th conviction in the TBW fraud case. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer seemed pleased in the DOJ press release: “As TBW’s chief financial officer, Mr. de Armas concealed a massive […]
Deloitte Resents the Notion That They Should Have Known That Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Was a Massive Fraud
As we mentioned briefly, Deloitte has been sued for $7.6 billion by the bankruptcy trustee of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker and Ocala Funding, LLC. If you’ve never heard of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker then check out Jr. Deputy Accountant who’s been all over it since the Feds starting kicking down the doors. Long story short – TBW was a giant fraud perpetrated by its management, Colonial Bank owned a lot of TBW’s mortgages, Colonial failed, Bank of America bought up a bunch of the mortgages, Fannie Mae says they’re owed money, CHRIST, it’s a mess.
Anyhoo, Steven Thomas, who is known for suing the pants of Big 4 firms (and BDO!), is the lead attorney for the plaintiffs and it sounds like the age-old story of auditors BEING COMPLETE IDIOTS:
“Deloitte missed this fraud because it simply accepted management’s conflicting, incomplete and often last-minute explanations of highly-questionable transactions, even though those explanations made no sense and were flatly contradicted by documents in Deloitte’s possession,” one of the lawsuits says.
Of course Deloitte isn’t amused by this, as Deloitte spokesman Jonathan Gandal’s statement attests:
Gandal said the blame for the fraud and losses should rest squarely on Taylor Bean, Ocala Funding and Farkas. “The bizarre notion that his engines of theft are entitled to complain of injury from their own crimes and to sue the outside auditors they lied to defies common sense, not to mention the law,” Gandal said on behalf of Deloitte.
If this statement strikes you as a little confusing, then you’re not alone. First off, when Mr. Gandal is referring to the “the law” he’s probably referring to this. In less legalese, basically what Deloitte is saying is that Lee Farkas and his merry band of crooks are the ones responsible for this shitshow not the Green Dot and therefore, this whole thing is ludicrous. I mean, come on guys, what could a firm that just reported nearly $29 billion in revenue could possibly have done differently? Crooks are just far too smart far auditors. Just ask one.