Bankruptcy of crypto exchange FTX in court

The US House Financial Services Committee has announced that it will hold the hearing to investigate the events and timeline related to the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

On 28 November, House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters said the 13 December investigation will explore every aspect of FTX’s collapse and is only the first in a long series of hearings into the failure of Sam Bankman Fried‘s platform. 

Timeline of the bankruptcy hearing related to the collapse of FTX

Lawmakers will begin their investigation into the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its broader impact on the digital asset sector at a hearing scheduled for 13 December.

The hearing is labeled “Investigating the FTX Collapse, Part I,” and will likely be part of a series.

At this time, the US House Committee on Financial Services, has not released any witness lists for the December hearing. 

Maxine Waters and Patrick McHenry, the senators who will serve on the committee, have previously spoken of a strong desire for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried to be present at the hearing, representing his two companies involved, FTX and Alameda Research. 

In addition, the likely chairman of the 13 December congressional committee revealed in an interview that he expects a major role for Binance, FTX’s rival exchange, at the hearing. 

He expects Binance’s role in the hearing to be central, so as to get into the exchanges’ perspective and better understand FTX’s wrong moves. Sam Bankman-Fried will speak at a New York Times summit later this week, but has not yet publicly indicated whether he will cooperate with the congressional investigation.

Senate lawmakers are also taking a close look at the FTX crisis

The committee to protect Italian investors

On 23 November, the creation of an Italian committee of FTX investors was made official. Thus was born the “Comitato Tutela degli Investitori Italiani – FTX Platform”. The objective of the new entity, also called the FTX Bank Run Committee, is to protect the motives of FTX platform savers through the initiation, in Italy and abroad, of legal, collective and individual actions in support of savers and specialized operators.

It is led by Mario Garofano, a technology entrepreneur, a saver affected by the collapse of FTX and administrator of a dedicated Telegram group (with more than 3 thousand members, not all of whom are necessarily involved). 

He is joined by lawyers Fabio Angelini of Parola Angelini and Sergio Di Nola of Cdra, who specialize in banking and finance.

The goal is to devise a strategy to protect Italian savers from the collapse of the exchange:

“Our idea is to join an international initiative, defined by players who weigh in. We look at massive action, because dilution is not beneficial, and we would like to protect small savers with free membership for those with less than 30 thousand euros on Ftx.”

The Committee also aims to carry out activities and side events, seminars, publications, in-depth studies in the field of cryptocurrencies and FinTech or whatever else is deemed useful for the most effective protection of savers on the FTX Platform. 

No proposal for legal assistance will be considered binding on those who join. Realistically, it will be necessary to take action on several fronts of legal protection, in parallel, and each proposal will be addressed to Committee members, who can then follow up on it according to their respective need.