The agency responsible for supervising bankruptcy cases in the United States, the bankruptcy trustee, dependent on the Department of Justice, on December 1 called for an independent investigation into the bankruptcy of FTX. Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), founder of the cryptocurrency exchange platform, and his entourage, are suspected of fraud. The principal interested in denying during recent public speaking.
In a filing in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, Andrew Vara, administrator of the US bankruptcy trustee, said ” An investigator could – and should – investigate substantial and serious allegations of fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, misconduct and mismanagement ».
Since to sudden drops of FTXmid-November, SBF is singled out. He is suspected of using his clients’ money to fund another of his companies, Alameda Research.. Several billion dollars would have disappeared. After a two-week-long silence, he acknowledged management errors and apologized for them, but said he had not ” sought to commit fraud against any person ».
FTX Bankruptcy Proceedings May Be Used in Possible Fraud Investigation
John Ray III, the new CEO of FTX, was not kind to the founder of the platform. Accustomed to raising companies in difficulty, he declared on court documents, “ Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of a company’s controls and such a complete absence of reliable financial information as has happened here. ». He also called the previous leadership ” potentially corrupt ».
An internal investigation was demanded by John Ray III, to shed light on this affair. However, according to Andrew Vara, ” the issues at stake here are simply too broad and too important to be left to internal investigation ». The fall of FTX dragged BlockFi in its wake and shook up the cryptocurrency community.
The US Bankruptcy trustee more closely oversees bankruptcies above a certain threshold, in this case when they involve companies exceeding $5 million to its clients. However, according to Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor who gave his analyzes to CNBC« It just shows a level of interest and attention they are giving to this matter which should trouble Mr Bankman-Fried ».
During the DealBook Summit, the event of the New York Times where SBF spoke for the first time, the 30-year-old said he was not concerned about possible lawsuits. According to him, he would for the moment be focused on restoring the situation.