FTX Sues Anthony Scaramucci to Recover Creditor Funds
FTX has reportedly sued former Trump administration official Anthony Scaramucci to recover creditor funds.
The suit was one of several filed by the bankrupt cryptocurrency company in its efforts to claw back money owed to its creditors, TechCrunch reported Saturday (Nov. 9). In addition to Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital, other defendants include Crypto.com and Fwd.us, a lobbying group backed by Mark Zuckerberg.
According to the report, FTX says it is seeking to recoup money that was part of “a campaign of influence-buying” by founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, carried out as the company was struggling to cover its cash flow needs.
“These ‘investments’ conveyed little to no benefit to Debtors, and instead served only to prop up Bankman-Fried’s standing in the worlds of politics and traditional finance,” the suit says, adding he then attempted to leverage as “potential sources of equity investment in FTX to fill the hole in the balance sheet and, therefore, keep his scheme afloat.”
FTX went bankrupt two years ago this month, sending shockwaves through the crypto world and leading to the prosecution of several executives, including Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison. But before the company collapsed, it announced it was acquiring a 30% stake in SkyBridge.
In exchange for Bankman-Fried’s investment in SkyBridge, the suit says, Scaramucci took Bankman-Fried on “a whirlwind tour of the U.S. and the Middle East” to meet potential investors, with Scaramucci “so invested in the success of Bankman-Fried’s fundraising efforts that he lent Bankman-Fried his own suit and tie in advance of their meetings so that Bankman-Fried wouldn’t show up to important meetings in his trademark shorts and a t-shirt.”
PYMNTS has contacted SkyBridge for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.
The suit comes one month after a federal court approved a bankruptcy agreement from FTX, which gives 98% of the company’s creditors approximately 119% of their claim.
“Looking ahead, we are poised to return 100% of bankruptcy claim amounts plus interest for non-governmental creditors through what will be the largest and most complex bankruptcy estate asset distribution in history,” FTX CEO John Ray said in a news release.
Ray added that FTX was finalizing plans to “make distributions to creditors across more than 200 jurisdictions around the world.”
Meanwhile, the criminal cases against Bankman-Fried’s accomplices-turned-government-witnesses continue to wind down.
Last week, Caroline Ellison — former head of FTX sister firm Alameda Research — reported to prison to begin serving a two-year sentence for fraud. Another executive, Gary Wang, is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
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