Media Companies Renew Fight to Get Names of FTX Creditors

A coalition of major media companies today filed another objection to a federal judge’s decision to keep the names of FTX creditors private. 

In a Wednesday filing, the New York Times, Dow Jones, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times said there was no legal basis for withholding the names of the people that are owed money by the failed exchange.

FTX went bankrupt last year in a highly-publicized collapse. The top 50 creditors are owed an estimated $3.1 billion and have repeatedly told the court that they want their names kept secret. 

Institutional creditors were revealed in court documents in January and included the likes of Apple, Netflix and Coinbase. But the 9.6 million individual customers owed money by the failed exchange remain a secret. 

In November, Judge John Dorsey—who is overseeing the case—decided to withhold the names of the FTX creditors at the company’s request.

FTX argued that publishing creditors’ names could reveal private information and compromise their security. “Cryptocurrency holders are particularly susceptible to fraud and theft,” a group of FTX customers located out of the States said last year.

But the media pushed back and the judge allowed them to argue their case in January. 

FTX was a global crypto brand that mainly allowed customers to buy, sell, and bet on the future price of digital assets. The firm very quickly and unexpectedly went bust in November, due to what prosecutors now allege was gross mismanagement, including the co-mingling of funds.

The SEC further alleges that ex-FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried, who claimed he barely slept and took stimulants to run the crypto behemoth, concealed his diversion of FTX customer funds to sister trading firm Alameda Research.

He is now facing 13 criminal charges—including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Bankman-Fried also allegedly made 300 illegal political donations in the United States to “try to purchase influence over cryptocurrency regulation in Washington, D.C.”