FTX Resumes Payments to Its Employees Following Bankruptcy

• FTX is resuming ordinary course payment of salary and benefits to its worldwide employees.
• The payments will exclude FTX’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.

FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange to pay its employees and contractors after several weeks of uncertainty. According to the recent announcement from the bankrupt trading platform, the majority of FTX subsidiaries around the world have been resuming ordinary course payment of salary and benefits to its employees worldwide and certain non-U.S. contractors.

John Ray III, the new FTX CEO stated: 

With the Court’s approval of our First Day motions and the work being done on global cash management, I am pleased that the FTX group is resuming ordinary course cash payments of salaries and benefits to our remaining employees around the world.

Ray further added that FTX is also making payments to selected non-U.S. vendors and service providers as needed to maintain the platform’s operational processes, subject to the bankruptcy court-approved limits. 

Ordinary Course Payments for Employees 

The recent announcement indicates that the remaining FTX employees and contractors will be paid for roughly three weeks. This relief will include cash payments owed to employees at FTX and 101 other connected firms since the bankruptcy filing on November 11, as well as several vendors and service providers who have yet to be paid by FTX. 

However, all FTX subsidiaries and associated businesses will not be subject to the payment resumption. The payments will exclude Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s former CEO, and its affiliated persons such as Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and Caroline Ellison.

Moreover, only FTX Debtors’ employees and contractors will be granted relief in the Bahamas, the headquarters of the crypto exchange, as FTX Digital Markets is the subject of a separate liquidation proceeding in the country.