FTX Demands Protection of Assets from Liquidators of Bahamas Unit – What's Going On?

cryptonews.com:

Defunct crypto exchange FTX has asked a US bankruptcy judge to protect its property from the liquidators in charge of winding down its Bahamas unit. 

In a lawsuit filed against the liquidators overseeing the wind-down of its Bahamian affiliate FTX Digital Markets, FTX claimed that they are wrongly claiming ownership of the exchange's assets, Bloomberg reported, citing an adversary proceeding filed in bankruptcy court on Sunday.

The lawsuit alleges that the Bahamian affiliate was a "corporate shell" and the "centerpiece" of founder Sam Bankman-Fried's effort "to funnel FTX Trading customer deposits and other valuable property and rights to the Bahamas, out of the reach of American regulators and courts."

Consequently, it is asking US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey to intervene and rule that the assets Sam Bankman-Fried and other employees lodged under the Bahamas unit were “fraudulent transfers,” and thus, they are owned by FTX.

The filing added that the Bahamian liquidators’ claims over FTX continue to “balloon in size and volume.” It also claimed that they have recently threatened to get in the way of Alameda’s preferential payments. 

Without an intervention from the US bankruptcy court, the Bahamas liquidators “will continue to assert baseless claims that will harm FTX.com customers and all other creditors of the FTX Debtors,” the filing argued. 

According to a report by Reuters, liquidators for the Bahamas division, which is known as FTX Digital Markets, recently asked the Bahamas Supreme Court to rule on which FTX entity is responsible for re-paying customers and should control its assets. 

They also argued that the Bahamian company took on a more central role for FTX.com as the company "intended to migrate existing