yes, yes and yes

Seems like a righteous cause but you must realize that unless you take the proper approach your efforts may well turn into an interoffice joke. A peasant full of rage and indignation will only amuse these scumbags. In order to get their attention you must convince them that there employees indiscretion will materially affect their bottom line. Best of luck to ya. Let us know how it works out.

Tell me the names again and I'll get to work.

While true to a degree...if you get high enough in the food chain, are properly respectful, and have a real point...the CEO etc will say ok I really don't want to have to deal with this type of shit, make it go away and/or make an example out of someone.

Sorry guys....I know this firm, and quite frankly all you will probably get is a politically correct response....and certainly not what you are probably looking for.

That's fine if they don't give you what you're looking for after an attempt and you want to take it to the next level the shoot and e-mail off to the local news(but obviously after they have blown you off) see if they are interested in the story. They may not be but all it costs is time.

All you have to do is look them up on Wiki and find out that publicity like that would be swatting a gnat. They've had bigger issues and survived them.

JMHO....he'll get a politically correct answer and then they will make his place off limits to dinners from that point on.

You make a very valid point. Occasionally the squeaky wheel will get the grease. That being the case the Meat should consider the fact that a wheel will squeak much louder over the phone than on a computer screen.

**** email. Spend some rational, calm and well reasoned time working your way up the ladder on the phone and just maybe you can influence someone in a position of power to react to your grievance.

we'll see guys...

I'll try the email approach...

and then I'll try the phone approach...

and if nothing happens, nothing happens...I don't even expect anything to happen...I'd rather just have the guilty party realize how unacceptable their actions were...

It's not like I expect them to send up $$$, gifts or hookers.

Like this guy is going to give a shit. He's probably the one who makes them tip shitty.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d9o&refer=news

BDO Seidman to Pay $521.7 Million Damages, Jury Says (Update3)



Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- BDO Seidman LLP must pay $521.7 million for failing to detect a fraud that led to the collapse of a client company, a jury found, imposing punitive damages the firm's chief executive officer said it couldn't pay.

The Miami state court jury today added $351.7 million in punitive damages to yesterday's award of $170 million for actual damages in a lawsuit brought by a Portuguese bank claiming millions in losses from the destruction of E.S. Bankest LLC.

BDO Chief Executive Officer Jack Weisbaum testified today that his firm ``could not pay punitive damages,'' and a lawyer said BDO would be forced to cut jobs if yesterday's award was increased. Attorney Adam Cole asked the CEO on the stand whether BDO could keep serving clients if forced to pay punitive damages.

``Probably not,'' Weisbaum said. ``It would be very difficult. We certainly wouldn't look the way we do now.'' He said BDO, the seventh-largest U.S. accounting firm, ``could not pay punitive damages.''

Weisbaum said after the verdict that the firm plans to appeal. The company is prepared to put up a $50 million bond as required by state law, Weisbaum said.

``We do have insurance to cover this, but I cannot talk about the amount of the insurance,'' he said.

In his closing arguments to the jury, Steven Thomas, a lawyer for the plaintiff, Banco Espirito Santo SA, Portugal's third-largest bank, urged jurors to award the bank the amount finally reached by today's decision, $521.7 million. That is how much in fake Bankest accounts receivable BDO Seidman certified as real, he said.

`Gratified'

``We're gratified that the jury recognized the importance of the public trust vested in BDO Seidman and their violation of that public trust,'' Thomas said after the verdict. lier, Seidman attorney Arturo Alvarez urged jurors not to add to the money the firm must pay.

``You may not award an amount that would financially destroy the defendant, particularly a defendant who didn't steal the money,'' Alvarez said. ``Here you had thieves that stole the money. We are a victim too, because there is not a single bit of evidence that we knew what was going on.''

Punitive damages would destroy the company and its 2,800 employees, Alvarez said.

``That's not fair and that's not justice,'' he said.

The firm reported July 24 that revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30 increased 6 percent to $589 million, according to its Web site.

`Big Problem'

``The big problem is a single case can bring down a big firm,'' University of Georgia Professor Dennis Beresford said.

Firms such as BDO Seidman typically distribute most of their profit to partners each year, leaving little in reserve for large legal judgments, said Beresford, a former chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

``The real issue is going to be what happens in the appeal,'' Beresford said.

Banco Espirito sued Seidman in 2004 over losses it suffered when E.S. Bankest collapsed. The bank accused Seidman accountants of approving false financial records at the company.

Banco Espirito in 1998 formed Bankest, a company that bought accounts receivable and collected the debt, as a joint venture with Bankest Capital. The bank loaned Bankest $140 million and offered a $30 million line of credit based on BDO's assurance of its financial health, the bank's lawyers said.

Fake Accounts

Bankest officials faked millions of dollars in accounts receivable to support borrowing, U.S. authorities said. Banco Espirito sold its interest in 2002 for $10 million, Cole said.

After the fraud was uncovered, Bankest went bankrupt. Four executives were convicted of crimes at a trial, and five others pleaded guilty. A former CEO was sentenced to 20 years in prison this month.

BDO Seidman Lawyers denied the firm was to blame for the bank's loss. Banco Espirito had four of its own executives on Bankest's board and shouldn't have relied on audits to spot fraud, the lawyers said.

Seidman's verdict is the latest blow to an accounting industry that saw Arthur Andersen LLP destroyed by criminal charges related to Enron Corp. and KPMG LLP consult bankruptcy lawyers before reaching an agreement to avoid charges over illegal tax shelters. Andersen was once the fifth-largest firm, and KPMG is fourth-largest.

The largest accounting firms were once known as the Big Eight. After mergers and the Arthur Andersen collapse, those in the industry talk of the Big Four: KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Deloitte & Touche LLP and Ernst & Young LLP.

The case is Banco Espirito Santo International Ltd. v. BDO Seidman LLP, 04-14009-CA-01, 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida (Miami-Dade County).

To contact the reporter on this story: Sophia Pearson in Miami at spearson3@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Patrick Oster at poster@bloomberg.net; Erik Schatzker at eschatzker@bloomberg.net.

Apparently that was overturned...

On June 24, 2010 the American Lawyer wrote, “Florida's Third District Court of Appeal tossed out one of the largest audit malpractice verdicts in U.S. history Wednesday, ruling that a new trial was necessary in a six-year-old court battle between Chicago-based accounting firm BDO Seidman and Portuguese bank Espirito Santo. In August 2007 a jury in Miami awarded Espirito Santo $521.7 million--$170 million in compensatory damages and nearly $352 million in punitive damages--over allegedly negligent audits that BDO conducted on a corrupt Espirito Santo subsidiary…But in a 20-page ruling, a three-judge appellate panel unanimously concluded that the 2007 trial was wrongly bifurcated into separate sections and that jurors were forced to determine BDO's liability too early in the case… The Florida appeals court's ruling seriously undermined Espirito Santo's claim that BDO should reimburse the bank for $140 million in debenture notes that it had sold its clients while making another $30 million in loans to a subsidiary as part of a shareholder agreement. One of those noteholders testified for Espirito Santo at trial that they relied on BDO's audit opinions, which the trial judge deemed sufficient to sustain the claims of other investors. But the appeals court found fault with that reasoning, ruling that Espirito Santo would have to call every noteholder if it wanted to argue that each one relied on BDO's audits before buying notes sold by Espirito Santo."

Heh... I should have finished reading the thread since you guys found it. But you know how I found out that you guys already found it?

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&n...efd9eb4000c306

only two pages come up. Both are pretty interesting.

how much was the tip? how much is a satisfactory tip?

Well, I guess you guys didn't definitively find it and are still speculating.

Check out my link above. Everything you need is there.

Phone, Email, Name of Admin, etc.

I to am curious as to what kind of and even if you get a response. Please feel us in on the details when you have time. Good luck!!