Lawsuit filed against accounting firm seeks $5 billion plus

MIAMI (AP) — Accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers is squaring off in a Miami courtroom with lawyers for a defunct mortgage company over a $5.5 billion lawsuit involving audits at a failed Alabama bank.

The lawsuit contends PricewaterhouseCoopers should have detected massive fraud at Colonial Bank of Montgomery, Alabama, that was orchestrated by top executives at shuttered mortgage firm Taylor, Bean and Whitaker based in Ocala.

Several of the mortgage firm’s executives were convicted of crimes in the fraud scheme. Colonial was shut down in 2009.

The lawsuit contends PricewaterhouseCoopers is liable for losses because its audits missed evidence of fraud at Colonial. The Big Four firm contends it did its job and that criminal fraud is designed to avoid detection.