A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Wednesday allowed a list of creditors for FTX to remain sealed for at least another three months.
Following the most recent decision in the FTX bankruptcy proceedings, the identities of up to nine million FTX customers are expected to be kept a secret for at least another three months.
Judge John Dorsey reportedly made the judgment on January 11 in the bankruptcy court in Delaware after receiving a 168-page filing from FTX on January 8 asking the court to withhold sensitive consumer data.
Despite mounting pressure from many media sites, Judge Dorsey noted that he is still “reluctant at this point” to publish the sensitive material since it would put creditors “at risk”:
“We’re talking about individuals here who are not present – individuals who may be at risk if their name and information is disclosed.”
Days earlier, FTX attorneys argued that the court should exercise its “broad discretion” under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to protect those impacted by FTX’s bankruptcy because “disclosure of the information would create an undue risk of identity theft or unlawful injury to the individual or the individual’s property.”
In a Dec. 28 joinder filing, a group of non-U.S. FTX customers also urged the Delaware bankruptcy court to maintain the confidentiality of customer information, claiming that doing so would result in “irreparable harm.”
However, Judge Dorsey’s judgment goes against the majority of bankruptcy procedures in which creditor information is published, as was the case in the bankruptcy proceedings for bitcoin lender Celsius in October.
The bankruptcy court in Delaware hasn’t been as kind to FTX equity holders after releasing a document on January 9 that listed the investors who were anticipated to lose all of their investment and the amount of shares they had with the crypto exchange.
Tom Brady, a former brand ambassador for FTX and a legend in the NFL, his ex-wife Gisele Bündchen, software billionaire Peter Thiel, and Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary were among them.
However, it looks that progress is being made since the collapsed exchange has reportedly already recovered $5 billion in cash and cryptocurrencies, according to a statement released by FTX attorney Andy Dietderich on January 11.
More than 1 million creditors were reportedly engaged, with $3 billion owed to the 50 largest creditors alone, according to early bankruptcy filings from November.
