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☆ FTX Reaches Agreement With Bahamas Liquidators on Asset Recovery
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

FTX’s new management and liquidators in the Bahamas have signed an agreement to cooperate and collect assets on behalf of creditors, capping off a prolonged row between the two parties over who controls the bankrupt exchange’s remaining property. The parties have agreed to share information, as well as help to secure and distribute assets that belong to FTX entities in the Bahamas and abroad, according to a Friday press release. FTX had been headquartered in the Bahamas since 2021 and its international exchange was overseen by Bahamian regulators.

Jan 6 (Reuters) - FTX's U.S.-based bankruptcy team have agreed to coordinate with liquidators winding down the crypto exchange's operations in the Bahamas, resolving a dispute that threatened the recovery of what could be billions of dollars in lost funds. FTX’s U.S. bankruptcy team has been at odds with Bahamian officials since November, when competing bankruptcies were filed in the two countries. The Securities Commission of the Bahamas began liquidation proceedings on Nov. 10 against FTX Digital Markets Ltd., the company's Bahamas-based unit. The next day a U.S. Chapter 11 proceeding was filed in Delaware, which included more than 100 FTX entities including FTX Trading and crypto hedge fund Alameda Research. Bahamian regulators have seized FTX assets, which officials said was meant to safeguard assets that will ultimately be returned to creditors of FTX Digital Markets.

☆ FTX reaches agreement over U.S. and Bahamas bankruptcy proceedings
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Jan 6 (Reuters) - FTX and its affiliated debtors said the cryptocurrency exchange's U.S. bankruptcy estate and the liquidators of its affiliated operations in the Bahamas reached an agreement to coordinate their operations. The two sides will work to share information, secure property and coordinate litigation against third parties, according to a mutual statement. Legal teams for the U.S. and Bahamian operations had been locked in a dispute over access to internal records and value of holdings of their operations. FTX collapsed into bankruptcy in November and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been charged with fraud by U.S. prosecutors. Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu NomiyamaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Judge Ordered Seizure of Money from FTX Digital Markets Accounts at Silvergate
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Peter Rudegeair | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A federal judge recently ordered the seizure of about $93 million that an FTX unit was keeping in accounts at Silvergate Capital Corp., according to a court filing Wednesday. Silvergate disclosed the seizure in a filing to a Delaware bankruptcy court handling the insolvency of FTX Digital Markets, a Bahamian-based subsidiary of crypto exchange FTX. The joint provisional liquidators of FTX Digital Markets in the Bahamas previously asked the court on Dec. 23 to transfer the $93 million out of Silvergate to “ensure the safety” of the funds.

[1/3] The logo of Robinhood Markets, Inc. is seen at a pop-up event on Wall Street after the company's IPO in New York City, U.S., July 29, 2021. The Department of Justice did not believe the 56 million shares of Robinhood, worth about $465 million, were property of a bankruptcy estate, U.S. attorney Seth Shapiro told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey, who is overseeing the FTX bankruptcy. Bankrupt crypto firm BlockFi, FTX and liquidators in Antigua have all laid claim to the Robinhood stock, along with Bankman-Fried. He said the Robinhood shares were subject to litigation and it was an "open question" about who owns them. BlockFi is suing Emergent in a bid to seize the Robinhood stock, which was pledged by Alameda as collateral to guarantee repayment of a loan made by BlockFi.

☆ Bahamas regulator holds FTX assets pending delivery to customers, creditors
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 29 (Reuters) - The Securities Commission of the Bahamas said on Thursday that it is holding FTX assets worth $3.5 billion based on market pricing at the time of transfer on a temporary basis to deliver them to customers and creditors who own them. FTX's Bahamas unit's digital assets were transferred to digital wallets under the exclusive control of the commission in November soon after the company and its hedge fund Alameda Research and dozens of affiliates filed for U.S. bankruptcy. "All transferred assets were and remain under the sole control of the commission," Rolle said. The authorities in the Bahamas, where the company had its headquarters, appointed liquidators to wind down FTX's international trading business soon after the company announced bankruptcy. Reporting by Urvi Dugar and Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Bahamian regulator says it seized $3.5 billion of FTX crypto assets for 'safekeeping'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas says it seized $3.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency from collapsed crypto exchange FTX. In a media release late Thursday, the watchdog confirmed the total sum taken from FTX's Bahamian subsidiary, FTX Digital Markets, and added that the funds were moved into its own digital wallets "for safekeeping." The regulator had previously confirmed it was holding some of FTX's digital assets but did not specify the amount. The transfer took place on Nov. 12, the day after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. The regulator said it took the funds after receiving information from Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX's disgraced co-founder, concerning cyberattacks on the systems of FTX's Bahamian unit.

☆ The Sam Bankman-Fried-backed crypto Solana has lost nearly all its value this year and is still crashing as key projects bail
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Solana, once praised as a viable rival for Ethereum, has tumbled almost 70% since the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's empire, and is down 94% in 2022. The disgraced crypto founder said over the summer that Solana was the most underrated cryptocurrency. The latest decline comes as more crypto projects bail on the Solana ecosystem. FTX and Alameda had purchased over 50.5 million Solana tokens — now worth about $500 million — that would remain "locked" until 2028. Meanwhile, Solana Compass data cited by Forbes showed that Alameda's liquidators now hold over half a billion dollars worth of the crypto.

Dec 27 (Reuters) - FTX customers filed a class action lawsuit against the failed crypto exchange and its former top executives including Sam Bankman-Fried on Tuesday, seeking a declaration that the company's holdings of digital assets belong to customers. The proposed class, which wants to represent more than 1 million FTX customers in the United States and abroad, seeks a declaration that traceable customer assets are not FTX property. The customer class also wants the court to find specifically that property held at Alameda that is traceable to customers is not Alameda property, according to the complaint. The lawsuit seeks a declaration from the court that funds held in FTX U.S. accounts for U.S. customers and in FTX Trading accounts for non-U.S. customers or other traceable customer assets are not FTX property. If the court determines it is FTX property, then the customers seek a ruling that they have a priority right to repayment over other creditors.

☆ FTX bankruptcy judge to hear media companies' request to reveal customer names
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Dietrich Knauth | Industry Insight | Saw Law Firms Move Past The Pandemic Into A More Client-Focused Service Environment | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dec 16 (Reuters) - A group of media companies is set to argue on Friday to the U.S. judge overseeing the FTX bankruptcy that they should be allowed to request that the collapsed crypto exchange make public the names of its customers. In seeking to intervene in the case, the New York Times (NYT.N), Dow Jones, Bloomberg and the Financial Times said bankruptcy law demands transparency. Letting customer names remain secret could turn bankruptcy proceedings into a "farce" if creditors start fighting anonymously over how much money they should get, the media companies wrote in a Delaware bankruptcy court filing. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey said he will not rule on customer privacy issues before January. During Friday's hearing, FTX will also provide an update on its asset recovery efforts and its dispute with the Bahamas-based liquidators.

☆ Don't blame the Bahamas for FTX's implosion, foreign minister says as the disgraced company's lawyers hurl accusations of complicity
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Jennifer Sor | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

FTX lawyers want to deny liquidators access to company records, claiming the Bahamian government could use it to swipe money away from FTX. But it isn't the fault of the Bahamas that FTX is embroiled in its financial troubles, according to foreign minister Fred Mitchell. Court-appointed liquidators for FTX's Bahamas-based business asked for key records within the crypto exchange, including access to company accounts and data. The Securities Commission of the Bahamas has disputed those claims, and Bahamas foreign minister Fred Mitchell denounced the accusations in a voice recording distributed via WhatsApp on Friday. Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested on multiple charges this week, including fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy after the collapse of his crypto exchange shed light on glaring accounting scandals.

FTX attorney James Bromley told Dorsey that the Bahamian government has previously obtained information from FTX Digital Market's liquidators and used it to siphon digital assets away from FTX. The Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB) has previously disputed FTX's "misstatements" about the Bahamian government's response to FTX's collapse. Chris Shore, an attorney for the Bahamas-based liquidators, told Dorsey that the liquidators were not working at the direction of the Bahamian government. Dorsey began the hearing by asking whether FTX and the Bahamas liquidators could reach a compromise on data sharing before Bromley shot that suggestion down. "Unlike the Chapter 11 process, there is no transparency in the process in the Bahamas," Ray said.

☆ Bahamas attorneys file emergency motion in FTX case for access to databases with client information
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Attorneys in the Bahamas filed an emergency motion on Friday asking a Delaware bankruptcy judge to compel U.S. leaders of failed crypto firm FTX to give them access to databases as part of the proceedings. The emergency motion claims that despite "many attempts to obtain access," FTX employees and counsel have stymied Bahamian regulators in their effort to get critical financial information located in Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Portal databases. They're seeking data on FTX international customers that is stored on AWS servers, including "wallet addresses, customer balances, deposit and withdrawal records, trades, and accounting data." FTX filed for bankruptcy protection last month after a liquidity crunch at the crypto exchange, which was intermingling assets with sister hedge fund Alameda Research. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who had an estimated net worth of $16 billion before the collapse, will appear before U.S. lawmakers next week.

☆ Three Arrows Capital says its founders still not cooperating with asset recovery
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Dietrich Knauth | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dec 2 (Reuters) - Liquidators for bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) said on Friday that the company's founders are refusing to cooperate with asset recovery efforts, hindering the company's ability to return funds to creditors. Founders Kyle Davies and Su Zhu are more interested in rehabilitating their reputation than helping their own company's creditors, attorney Adam Goldberg said in bankruptcy court in New York. Davies has done interviews recently commenting on the implosion of crypto exchange FTX, attempting to shift blame for Three Arrows' own collapse, Goldberg said. Despite incomplete access to records and accounts, Three Arrows' liquidators have recovered some assets belonging to creditors, including $35 million in U.S. dollars and several different cryptocurrency tokens, liquidator Russell Crumpler said in court. They filed a parallel bankruptcy case in Manhattan to shield Three Arrows' U.S. assets.

☆ Carillion Liquidators Say KPMG Missed Red Flags in Audits of Defunct Construction Firm
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Jennifer Williams-Alvarez | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

Big Four firm KPMG LLP missed multiple red flags when it audited the financial statements of Carillion PLC, the liquidators of the defunct construction and outsourcing firm said. KPMG received £29 million from Carillion without qualifying its audit opinions over the course of 19 years, according to the liquidators. The construction company’s liquidators also reject KPMG’s argument that the value of the construction contracts was concealed. The Carillion liquidators will rely at trial on findings from the FRC’s investigation, the filings show. If there is no settlement between the liquidators and the audit firm, the case against KPMG could go to trial in or around 2024.

☆ FTX spent $300mln on Bahamas real estate, 'substantial' assets missing, lawyers say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Crypto exchange FTX was run as a “personal fiefdom” of Sam Bankman-Fried, attorneys for the firm said on Tuesday, describing that one of the company’s units spent $300 million on Bahamas real estate. An attorney said the $300 million spent on real estate was largely homes and vacation properties for senior staff. At the hearing, an attorney for FTX also said that the company continues to suffer cyberattacks as bankruptcy begins, and that “substantial” assets are missing. Bankman-Fried, FTX and the Bahamas liquidators did not immediately respond to requests for comment. FTX said that it was communicating with U.S. regulators and bankruptcy court officials, but did not mention Bahamas regulators.

NEW YORK/LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - FTX has a total cash balance of $1.24 billion, a court filing by advisers on the stricken crypto exchange's restructuring showed ahead of U.S. bankruptcy hearings set for later on Tuesday. Its cash balance as of Sunday was "substantially higher" than previously thought, Monday's filing by Edgar Mosley of Alvarez & Marshal, a consultancy firm advising FTX, said. The details of FTX's cash balances came ahead of a hearing in Delaware on FTX's so-called first-day motions. FTX, led since the bankruptcy filing by new CEO John Ray, has accused Bankman-Fried of working with Bahamian regulators to "undermine" the U.S. bankruptcy case and shift assets overseas. Since the implosion of FTX, some crypto players are taking to decentralized exchanges known as "DEXs" where investors trade peer-to-peer on the blockchain.

☆ FTX now expects 'millions' of creditors but says their identities are valuable assets that should be kept secret for now
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Lawyers for FTX said during the crypto exchange's bankruptcy hearing that they expect "millions" of creditors. FTX wants to keep their identities redacted, saying they represent a valuable asset. Over the weekend, FTX filed a list of its 50 largest creditors with the names redacted. FTX filed for bankruptcy earlier this month while Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down as chief executive amid allegations of mishandling client funds. Meanwhile, other new details emerged during the bankruptcy hearing Tuesday, such as FTX's use of 36 banks and over 200 bank accounts.

☆ Explainer: The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant: who controls it and why is it important?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Guy Faulconbridge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Repeated shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine has raised the possibility of a grave accident just 500 km (300 miles) from the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chornobyl disaster. What nuclear material is at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, what are the risks and why are Russia and Ukraine fighting over it? The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has six Soviet-designed VVER-1000 V-320 water-cooled and water-moderated reactors containing Uranium 235, which has a half-life of more than 700 million years. The biggest risk is from overheating nuclear fuel, which could happen if the power that drives the cooling systems was cut. Besides the reactors, there is also a dry spent fuel storage facility at the site for used nuclear fuel assemblies, and spent fuel pools at each reactor site that are used to cool down the used nuclear fuel.

☆ FTX’s Fight With Bahamas Puts Customers’ Crypto in Limbo
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | Soma Biswas | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The collapse of FTX has put its new management at odds with regulators in the Bahamas over who should control billions in sparsely documented cash and cryptocurrency assets that are presently out of customers’ reach. The Securities Commission of the Bahamas last week installed liquidators at the exchange’s Bahamas-based unit FTX Digital Markets Ltd. to recover its assets and deposits from other FTX entities after they ruled it was insolvent. Bahamas regulators said on Thursday they had swept the local subsidiary’s assets to a government-controlled wallet “for safekeeping” and to protect the interests of clients and creditors.

☆ Bahamas regulators confirm they're holding some of FTX's assets
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

FTX has filed for bankruptcy in the US, seeking court protection as it looks for a way to return money to users. Securities regulators in the Bahamas conceded that they ordered the transfer of FTX digital assets from company wallets into their own custody, citing the authority granted to them by the Supreme Court of The Bahamas and challenging FTX's assertion that the U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy processes applied to them. In a press statement Thursday evening, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB) said that it had exercised "its powers as a regulator" and directed the transfer of "all digital assets" of FTX Digital Markets, a Bahamian subsidiary of the FTX empire. Crypto research firm Elliptic, however, believes that the $477 million theft reported over this weekend was tied to moves by Bahamian regulators. Statements from both the Bahamas and U.S attorneys suggest "that the "hack" was actually the seizure of FTX assets by the Bahamian government," Elliptic wrote.

☆ FTX suggests Sam Bankman-Fried transferred assets to Bahamas government custody after bankruptcy: Filing
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

FTX in a bombshell emergency court filing Thursday said evidence suggests Bahamian regulators directed former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to gain "unauthorized access" to FTX systems to obtain digital assets belonging to the company after it had filed for bankruptcy protection. The filing said that Bankman-Fried transferred those assets to the custody of the Bahamian government. It cites an interview published by Vox on Wednesday where Bankman-Fried expresses serious disdain for regulators. In that motion, FTX said the alleged conduct puts "in serious question" a request by Bahamian regulators for recognition as liquidators in the bankruptcy. The appointment of the JPLs and recognition of the Chapter 15 Case are thus in serious question," the filing continued.

☆ An executive at an FTX affiliate threw up when he learnt of the crypto exchange's impending collapse, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

FTX Digital Markets' co-CEO threw up when he learnt of FTX's problems, sources told the WSJ. A former EY senior tax account, Salame joined Alameda in 2019 before helping him set up FTX parent company FTX Trading Ltd. In September 2021 Salame became co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, which describes itself as the Bahamian subsidiary of FTX Trading Ltd. "FTX Digital Markets offers users regulated access to FTX's industry-leading derivatives, options, volatility products, and other FTX products and services," it says on its LinkedIn page. FTX Digital Markets filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York.

Nov 16 (Reuters) - Crypto lender Genesis Global Capital suspended customer redemptions on Wednesday, citing the sudden failure of crypto exchange FTX, while court papers showed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces legal action. After a flurry of tweets and interviews by Bankman-Fried, FTX said he "has no ongoing role" at the company and does not speak on its behalf. LEGAL ACTIONMeanwhile, U.S. court filings showed Bankman-Fried is facing legal action in the United States from investors alleging the company's yield-bearing crypto accounts violated Florida law. U.S. and Bahamian authorities were discussing the possibility of bringing Bankman-Fried to the United States for questioning, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Elsewhere, crypto exchange Binance said it had not contributed to FTX's collapse, in a response to a hearing on the crypto industry by a British parliamentary committee.

Nov 16 (Reuters) - Crypto lender Genesis Global Capital suspended redemptions on Wednesday citing the failure of crypto exchange FTX, while court papers showed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces legal action, as its sudden collapse ripples across the industry. LEGAL ACTIONMeanwhile, U.S. court filings showed Bankman-Fried is facing legal action in the United States from investors alleging the company's yield-bearing crypto accounts violated Florida law. Bloomberg on Tuesday also reported that U.S. and Bahamian authorities were discussing the possibility of bringing Bankman-Fried to the United States for questioning. Elsewhere, crypto exchange Binance, in a response to a hearing on the crypto industry by a British parliamentary committee on Monday, said it had not contributed to FTX's collapse. The U.S. House Financial Services Committee said Wednesday it plans to hold a hearing in December to investigate the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

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