Bahamian Supreme Court Approves Liquidators for FTX Assets

Authorities in the country, where FTX was based, are investigating the exchange for criminal misconduct and breach of securities laws.

AccessTimeIconNov 15, 2022 at 12:39 p.m. UTC
Updated Nov 15, 2022 at 2:59 p.m. UTC
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The Supreme Court of the Bahamas has approved two insolvency experts at PricewaterhouseCoopers as provisional liquidators overseeing FTX's assets, according to an official notice from Monday.

Entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried's now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX had its headquarters in the Bahamas, where it is under investigation by the jurisdiction's securities regulator and local law enforcement.

Last Thursday, while the exchange was still unraveling, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas suspended FTX’s registration and froze assets tied to the enterprise. It also appointed attorney Brian Simms as a court-supervised provisional liquidator.

The Commission, which announced the appointment of PwC's Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves as joint provisional liquidators on Monday, said it was taking swift enforcement action "to further protect the interests of clients, creditors and other stakeholders globally of FTX Digital Markets Ltd."

"The Commission is the lead authority in the Bahamas conducting the investigations into the events and parties, including, but not limited to, FTX Digital Markets Ltd. (a regulated entity), FTX Trading Ltd., Alameda Research Ltd. and other related entities whose center of main interest, direction and management were purportedly located in the Bahamas," the statement said.

FTX filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. last Friday, listing its 134 affiliates and subsidiaries around the world as entities also seeking protection against insolvency. A document filed on Monday showed FTX may have more than one million creditors.

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Sandali Handagama

Sandali Handagama is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for policy and regulations, EMEA. She does not own any crypto.


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