New York Post

WORSE THAN ENRON

New FTX big disgust

- By THOMAS BARRABI tbarrabi@nypost.com

FTX’s new boss said the firm’s corporate governance under disgraced ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was the worst he’s seen in his career — including his stint cleaning up the mess at Enron.

FTX CEO John Ray III — an insolvency expert who steered energy firm Enron through its infamous $23 billion bankruptcy following a massive accounting scandal — ripped his predecesso­rs in a scathing court filing on Thursday.

“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworth­y financial informatio­n as occurred here,” Ray said, according to the Financial Times.

“From compromise­d systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad to the concentrat­ion of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperien­ced, unsophisti­cated and potentiall­y compromise­d individual­s, this situation is unpreceden­ted,” Ray added.

Ray was tapped to replace Bankman-Fried as FTX’s CEO after a liquidity crisis forced the former cryptocurr­ency sector darling into insolvency. FTX, its sister cryptocurr­ency trading firm Alameda Research and more than 100 affiliates were forced to file for bankruptcy.

Ray declared last week that FTX was cooperatin­g with law enforcemen­t and regulatory officials and making “every effort” to recover assets.

Shortly before the company filed for bankruptcy, Bankman-Fried admitted that he had “f--ked up” and misjudged the state of FTX’s finances. Just days before the company’s collapse, the ex-billionair­e was insisting that client funds were safe.

Bahamas base

But Bankman-Fried remained defiant in a wild interview with Vox this week, telling a reporter that filing for bankruptcy was his “biggest single f–-kup” and stating, “f–-k regulators.”

Bankman-Fried was part of a closely knit group of 10 roommates who led FTX and Alameda from a penthouse in the Bahamas. The roommates were said to be romantical­ly linked, sparking online gossip that they were all members of a “polycule” — a network of polyamorou­s relationsh­ips.

The bankruptcy marked a stunning fall for FTX, which was valued at $32 billion as recently as last January, and for Bankman-Fried, who had tried to portray himself as the face of a burgeoning cryptocurr­ency movement.

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