Indian firm charged by Securities

London, Mar 27 (UNI) An Indian accounting firm and another from Cyprus have been charged with alleged misconduct by the Securities&Exchange Commission (SEC) in their audits of collapsed UK software group, AremisSoft Corp.

The charges have been filed against Savvides&Partners/PKF from Cyprus and RK Dhawan&Co from India at a Manhattan court alleging that the two companies have failed to conduct basic auditing procedures that would have detected fraud at AremisSoft.

The US watchdog is seeking civil penalties from the firm. The charges relate to the collapse of AremisSoft in 2002 which the SEC alleged, engaged in a number of fraudulent practices to make it appear as if the company had sales growth.

In 2005, the former co-chief executive of AremisSoft, Roys Poyiadjis, agreed to pay 200 million dollar to settle charges that he unloaded millions of shares in the software company while misleading investors about its revenue, WepCPA reported. The payment was the largest amount ever recovered by the SEC.

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