FTX customers claim they should be included in the sales process to guarantee their interests are reflected and have filed a limited objection to FTX’s plan to sell four independently run companies.
An ad hoc committee of non-U.S. customers, consisting of 18 members, who have combined claims against FTX totaling more than $1.9 billion, submitted the limited objection on December 4.
The committee said in its submission that prior public declarations made by FTX, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission make it abundantly clear that the client assets on the platform belonged to customers and not FTX.
It has also expressed worries about the possibility that “misappropriated customer cash” was used to buy or maintain these businesses.
The absence of information on the sale of the firms, it claimed, had raised “serious concerns,” and it was also questioned whether the businesses may be “essential to a prospective restart” of FTX.
Similar to an objection, a restricted objection simply pertains to a particular aspect of the proceedings. The limited objection, in this case, results from the Ad Hoc Committee’s exclusion from the sale procedure.
In order to guarantee that consumers’ interests are reflected throughout the bidding process, the committee has requested that the judge grant them the right to act as “consulting experts,” adding:
“The Ad Hoc Committee does not seek to stand in the way of value-maximizing transactions that the Debtors may pursue, so long as the interests of FTX.com customers are protected.”
The committee emphasizes that the consultation parties have no authority over the process other than the ability to provide guidance and that only consulting professionals will be permitted to attend the auction and confer with FTX on issues relevant to the sale process.
On December 15, FTX requested permission from the bankruptcy court to sell its European and Japanese subsidiaries, as well as the derivatives exchange LedgerX and the stock-clearing platform Embed.
In particular, LedgerX has received praise for performing well during the bankruptcy proceedings. Rostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, noted that the company had essentially been “walled off” from other businesses within the FTX Group and “held more cash than all the other FTX debtor entities combined.”
The same committee requested last week that the names and private information of consumers be removed from court records, claiming that doing so could expose customers to identity theft, targeted attacks, and “other damage.”
