ATTORNEY General Ryan Pinder. (File photo)
By LETRE SWEETING
lsweeting@tribunemedia.net
ATTORNEY General Ryan Pinder denied on Friday that the government seized any assets from FTX Digital Markets, cautioning individuals not to spread “fake news”.
“They (the Securities Commission) would have issued a press release the night before last in which they detailed their response to some of the filings and the bankruptcy matter, that were not accurate,” Mr Pinder said.
“For example, you would have heard in the bankruptcy matter that they discussed the government taking assets and seizing assets. Well that’s nothing further from the truth. The government does not seize assets. In fact it is the regulator, the Securities Commission, and they detailed that,” Mr Pinder said.
“You have to be very careful in this type of environment of your use of words. The responsible thing to do is to be honest and forthright and objective when you speak, especially with such an important and massive event that has occurred,” he said.
“I would caution everybody to not reiterate things that may be false, not speak on things that what (Donald) Trump would say is ‘fake news’, but to be patient and to be understanding and to be forthright and honest,” Mr Pinder said.
FTX filed for bankruptcy this month after numerous withdrawn deposits left the company owing $8 billion. The firm’s failure has sparked investigations by Bahamian and international law agencies.
Investigations are mainly focused on whether FTX misappropriated customer funds when it lent billions of dollars to Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund.
Both firms were owned by Sam Bankman-Fried, a former billionaire who gave up control of the companies at the time of the bankruptcy filing.
In US court filings last week, FTX’s new CEO John Ray III said there was “credible evidence that the Bahamian government is responsible for directing unauthorised access to the debtors’ systems for the purpose of obtaining digital assets of the debtors – that took place after the commencement of these cases.”
However the Securities Commission shot back at this characterisation.
“Given the nature of digital assets, and the risks associated with hacking and compromise, the commission determined that placing FDM into liquidation was not sufficient to protect the customers and creditors of FDM,” the SCB said in a recent press release.
FTX Digital Markets, which is based in The Bahamas, was placed into liquidation on November 10.
“Accordingly, on 12 November 2022, the commission sought an additional order from the Supreme Court of The Bahamas for authority under the DARE Act to transfer all digital assets of FTX into digital wallets under the exclusive control of the Commission for the benefit of clients and creditors of FDM,” the Securities Commission said.
