Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is reportedly suing Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao over alleged fraudulent transfers initiated by Sam Bankman-Fried.
The estate of FTX, which collapsed in 2022 when Bankman-Fried mismanaged customer funds, is trying to retrieve $1.8 billion from Binance that it says was sent to Zhao in a stock repurchase deal, Bloomberg reports.
Binance, Zhao and other executives from the exchange allegedly received the money from Bankman-Fried in July of 2021 when he bought back 20% of FTX’s international unit and 18.4% of its US-based entity, legal filings show.
Bankman-Fried paid for the stock buyback using FTT – FTX’s exchange token – and Binance’s BNB and its own now-defunct stablecoin BUSD.
Lawyers for the FTX estate say that since the exchange was “certainly balance-sheet insolvent” at the time of the transfer, the stock repurchase agreement was fraudulent in nature.
FTX is also alleging that Zhao made “false, misleading, and fraudulent tweets” that were “maliciously calculated to destroy his rival” shortly before the exchange collapsed – an allegation that Bankman-Fried also made in a “post-mortem” blog in January of 2023.
A Binance spokesperson told Bloomberg that FTX’s claims were “meritless” and that Binance was ready to defend themselves.
Bankman-Fried is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence. Caroline Ellison, also a former CEO of the exchange, is serving a two-year sentence while former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets Ryan Salame is serving a 7.5 year prison sentence.
FTX co-founder and former CTO Gary Wang is currently working with US authorities, helping the government develop tools to track illicit activity on crypto exchanges. His lawyers are still fighting for Wang to avoid prison time.
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