MIAMI AP – A jury Tuesday ordered BDO Seidman, the nation’s No. 5 accounting firm, to pay more than $351 million in punitive damages in a negligence case, bringing BDO’s potential liability in the case to roughly $521 million, an amount the CEO said threatens its operations.
The jury had found BDO negligent for failing to find massive fraud in its audits of a financial services company backed by a Portuguese bank. The amount will be added to the same jury’s award of $170 million in compensation to the bank, Banco Espirito Santo.
