The management of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has launched a lawsuit against American financier Anthony Scaramucci and his hedge fund company SkyBridge Capital to recoup funds invested by the exchange’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). This legal action forms part of major efforts by the FTX bankruptcy estate to recover ill-spent funds by the previous administration and settle its existing creditors.
FTX Deals With Scaramucci Shows No Benefit, Lawyers Claim
According to a recent report by Bloomberg, FTX filed 23 lawsuits in the Delaware bankruptcy court on Friday all to claw back funds directed at shady investments by Bankman-Fried. The exchange lawyers claimed that the former FTX boss and US convict embarked on an “influence-buying campaign” amidst the crypto market downturn in 2022, disguised through a series of flashy “investments”.
FTX is now moving to recover these funds from all clients of SBF’s extravagant “investments” which allegedly include Singaporean exchange Crypto.com and FWD.US, an immigration and justice advocacy group founded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
The filed complaint also focuses on Bankman-Fried’s relationship with Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House Communications Director and Goldman Sachs executive, and also founder of SkyBridge Capital hedge fund. The plaintiffs allege that the former FTX CEO devoted significant time and financial resources to Scaramucci which bore no benefits for the defunct exchange but rather targeted at consolidating Bankman-Fried’s position in politics and traditional finance.
Notably, SBF invested $67 million in Scaramucci’s SkyBridge in 2022 as a “bailout”, as the hedge fund company had witnessed its assets under management decline by $7.3 billion since 2015. In the same year, FTX eventually purchased 30% of SkyBridge for an undisclosed amount months before the crypto exchange declared bankruptcy. So far, Scaramucci and other defendants have yet to issue any response to these recent lawsuits.
FTX Intensifies Funds Recovery Effort Ahead Of Planned Creditor Payout
FTX, under the leadership of John J. Ray III, maintains significant efforts in recovering assets as creditors’ settlements are expected to commence soon. Recently, reported that the bankrupt exchange negotiated an agreement with Bybit to withdraw $228 million worth of assets from the UAE-based crypto trading platform.
The former crypto trading titan is expected to start conducting a creditors payout of $14.4 to $16.3 billion in the final months of 2024 with potential extensions to early 2025. Of this amount, only $1.6 to $3.2 billion are likely to re-enter the crypto market as the majority of creditors’ claims have been acquired by credit funds or will be inaccessible due to know-your-customer (KYC) restrictions.
Featured image from Vanity Fair, chart from Tradingview
