THE story of FTX is still in the telling.
The spectacular implosion of the crypto company put the spotlight of the world on The Bahamas – sometimes very unflatteringly. One article by a Bloomberg columnist in particular drew criticism for claiming that the first clue when it came to reasons to be wary of the company was that it chose The Bahamas as its headquarters. It then rehashed a history of The Bahamas that headed back to the 17th century and the days of pirates – not waters current companies are swimming in.
A book has already come out telling the story of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and there will doubtless be movies and documentaries to follow.
Legally, the story is also being told – with various legal proceedings afoot, both here in The Bahamas and internationally.
One definite date in that story is November 6 – when the Supreme Court will hear the petition to put FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary into full liquidation.
There has been an ongoing dispute with the US arm of FTX – though today we report that there has apparently been “substantial progress” in resolving those issues.
And then there is the political story. The book mentioned above claimed that Mr Bankman-Fried had considered paying off the debt of The Bahamas. It said: “Sam explained that he was trying to decide whether simply to pay off the $9 billion Bahamas national debt himself, so the country could fix roads and build schools and so on. He’d recently met the new prime minister to discuss this idea and some others. I learnt later from one of the prime minister’s aides that after the Bahamian general election in September 2021, Sam was the first person the prime minister had wanted to meet.”
The Office of the Prime Minister was quick to distance itself from that claim, saying that it never entertained any such proposal.
Then there was the claim in court of an email showing the Prime Minister asking Mr Bankman-Fried to provide advice to his son about a digital assets project – an email that came two months before the FTX collapse. The Office of the Prime Minister did not provide a comment or response to The Tribune when asked about that email. No evidence of wrongdoing on Mr Davis’ part was provided in relation to that claim.
It is into that landscape of the political story that FNM leader Michael Pintard has interjected himself as he calls for a select committee on FTX in the House of Assembly.
He said that the administration had refused to answer questions raised by the FNM, and added: “The question is: Is the prime minister and his colleagues prepared to have a full discussion of the role any of his members played in terms of helping FTX get established, acquire properties, hire persons, some of whom worked previously with government, and have they benefited personally or politically from any resources from this company?”
This is not the first time Mr Pintard has raised the prospect of a select committee – he mentioned it previously in February. We will see if he lives up to his promise to officially call for the committee in November.
On the face of it, it is not unreasonable to want to get to the bottom of all things related to FTX.
Its collapse was seismic, and bad news for The Bahamas – it affected our reputation, though our handling of issues related to the collapse has been professional and recognised as such at home and abroad.
The collapse was not The Bahamas’ fault – far from it, the ones to blame are those who led FTX itself.
But a thorough probe would answer questions about whether there were warning signs we should have noted, whether all processes were followed correctly, and where we might do better in the case of the next FTX, whatever company that might be.
The truth is, we want to have big investors coming in, but we want to make sure our nation is protected in terms of both its finances and its reputation.
A collapse on the scale of FTX deserves a thorough review – in whichever format that might be, and a call for a select committee is as good a method as any to start things rolling.
If there were things we could have done differently, we need to know them. The collapse left Bahamians out of work, suddenly out of a contract they thought was secure. It left recipients of donations wondering if they had to scrape together the money to pay back. It left a scramble for assets.
There are so many stories about FTX. It is only fair that we should get the full story.
