Mar 08, 2023
FTX Bankruptcy Case Costs $34.18M in January Fees
FTX’s recent bankruptcy filing has been a costly endeavor for the crypto exchange, with court documents revealing that it paid over $34 million in fees to the law firms, investment banks, and consulting companies involved in the case. This includes a hefty pay package for FTX’s chief restructuring officer and new CEO, John J. Ray III, who charged $1,300 an hour for a total of $305,000 in February.
The highest-priced billables were discovery ($3.5 million), asset disposition ($2.2 million) and general investigation work ($2 million). The law firm Sullivan & Cromwell made up the bulk of the fees, billing a total of $16.9 million for their services and expenses in January. This included 14,569 hours of work from partners, paralegals, and legal analysts, with some partners receiving up to $2,165 per hour. They also submitted another hefty $7.5 million bill to FTX for the first 19 days of February.
Ray played a crucial role in keeping Sullivan & Cromwell on board as legal counsel, having filed a court motion on Jan. 17 arguing that Sullivan & Cromwell had been integral in taking control over the “dumpster fire” that was handed to him.
The law firm Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan invoiced $1.44 million, while Landis Rath & Cobb invoiced $684,000 for their services and expenses in January. The forensics consulting firm AlixPartners billed $2.1 million for January, with almost half of the firm’s hours spent on forensic analysis of decentralized finance (DeFi) products and tokens in FTX’s possession.
Consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal invoiced for $12.5 million for over 17,100 hours it committed to avoidance actions, financial analysis and accounting procedures. Investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners billed a monthly service fee of $450,000 plus more than $50,000 in expenses for planning a restructuring strategy and engaging in correspondence with third parties.
The NFT space has seen an explosion in popularity in the past year, with many crypto exchanges and web3 agencies leveraging NFTs to promote their products and services. NFTs can be used to create unique digital assets that can be bought and sold on the blockchain, and can be used for a variety of purposes, including marketing, promotion, and sales.
Twitter NFT marketing is one of the most popular forms of NFT promotion, allowing companies to reach a larger audience and create more engagement with their products and services. A number of web3 agencies specialize in NFT marketing, offering services such as creating NFT campaigns, designing NFTs, and helping companies to sell their NFTs.
With FTX’s trial set for October, the fees could potentially reach in the hundreds of millions by the time the case is over, rivaling the $440 million in fees that New York-based law firm Weil Gotshal made from the infamous Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008.
Disclaimer: All investment or financial opinions expressed by MoonLanding Media are not recommendations and are intended for entertainment purposes only. Do your own research prior to making any kind of investment. This article has been generated based on trending topics, has not been fact checked and may contain incorrect information. Please verify all information before relying on it.
