- Alameda Research, Bankman Fried’s crypto hedge fund, has filed a lawsuit seeking to claw bank $445.8 million paid to Voyager as outstanding loan repayments.
- FTX lawyers argue that the payment was made less than 90 days before FTX filed for bankruptcy hence the funds are avoidable and recoverable.
- The firm also claims that Voyager was either knowingly or recklessly an accomplice of Alameda’s alleged crime.
FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research, just slapped Voyager Digital, a bankrupt digital lender, with a lawsuit claiming $445.8 million in loan repayments that FTX made to Voyager before its bankruptcy back in November. The lawyers dealing with Bankman’s empire bankruptcy proceedings filed the case in the Delaware court.
FTX and Voyager filed for bankruptcy in 2022, with Voyager doing so in July, with FTX following four months later in November. However, in the four months, as part of the bankruptcy procedure, Voyager demanded repayment of all outstanding loans from FXT and Alameda.
According to the court filing, FTX states that it complied; hence it paid Voyager $248.8 million in September and $193.9 million in October in addition to $3.2 million that was delivered in August as accrued interest.
However, since the repayments were made mere weeks before FTX filed for bankruptcy, the firm argues that they are eligible to recover these funds “on an administrative priority basis according to sections 503 and 507 of the Bankruptcy Code”, and they can instead use them to settle the exchange’s creditors. They also claim an award of any other avoidable fees they may discover, along with legal fees.
In the filing, Alameda and FTX lawyers acknowledged that Alameda used FTX customers’ assets to sustain their risky trades. However, they interestingly argued that Voyager is an accomplice to the misconduct. They stated that:
”Largely lost in the (justified) attention paid to the alleged misconduct of Alameda and its now-indicted former leadership has been the role played by Voyager and another cryptocurrency “lenders” who funded Alameda and fueled that alleged misconduct, either knowingly or recklessly.”
They also referred to Voyager’s business model as a “feeder fund” as it invested in firms like Alameda and Three Arrow Capital without questioning their feasibility or taking appropriate caution. The filing further reads,” To that end, Voyager lent Alameda hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency in 2021 and 2022.”
The FTX Bankruptcy Proceedings
Before this filing, FTX filed a motion requesting the dismissal of FTX Turkey and SNG Investments, FTX Turkish subsidiaries, from the list of Debtors and the bankruptcy proceedings, as the court does not have jurisdiction over them. They also explained that the customers of the two subsidiaries had begun to file private claims against the firm.
On the other hand, Sam Bankman Fried, founder of FTX, was released on a $250 million bail secured by his parent’s house back in December, where in addition to his parents, two other guarantors co-signed his bail. SBF’s lawyers requested that the court keep their identities private due to the possibility of threats.
However, in recent proceedings, the judge ruled that the identities of the other two people could be made public after several media companies, including The Wall Street Journal, filed a suit seeking the reveal stating that “the public’s interest in this matter cannot be overstated.”
