FTX Cracks Down on Company Insiders: Subpoenas Issued to Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison and Others – What’s Going On?

Insiders at the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX have been issued subpoenas to produce specific documents within the next day, court filings have revealed.

The requested documents include information about Binance’s takeover offer for FTX, an offer that Binance eventually withdrew. Other information requested included logs of internal communications between FTX executives, as well as evidence to back up certain tweets.

Among the people who received subpoenas were former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, his father Joseph Bankman, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, and top FTX executives Gary Wang and Nishad Singh.

All of the people were told to produce the requested documents by February 16, except for Bankman-Fried who was given one extra day since he was asked for the most documents.

Personal emails and real estate holdings

For Bankman-Fried’s part, the subpoena demanded information on companies such as FTX, Alameda Research and Emergent Fidelity Technologies. It also asked for copies of all emails from both his professional and personal accounts, as well as details on real estate holdings, and certain supporting documents to back up claims made in an interview with Vox in November last year.

Nishad Singh, who served as FTX Director of Engineering, was asked to provide documents with technical details on several aspects of the business, including details on FTX’s automated liquidation system.

$250m bail

Bankman-Fried is still out on a $250m bail. He currently stays at his parents’ home in California, a home that has been described by the New York Post as “a cozy residence on the edge of Stanford University’s campus in Palo Alto, California.”

Both of Bankman-Fried’s parents are distinguished law professors at Stanford University.

The former FTX boss has continued to blame his competitor Binance for FTX’s downfall. He said in a blog post in January that “an extreme, quick, targeted crash precipitated by the CEO of Binance made Alameda insolvent,” and that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has run an “extremely effective months-long PR campaign against FTX.”