25 Years for Bankman-Fried

Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for FTX Fraud

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange who was convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that upended the crypto industry and became a cautionary tale of greed and hubris.

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years that federal prosecutors had sought after a jury found him guilty of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering — charges that carried a maximum penalty of 110 years behind bars. But the punishment was far above the six and a half years requested by his defense lawyers.

Are SBF’s Friends in Prison? Where FTX’s Ellison, Nishad, Wang Are Now

On Thursday, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years for his crimes. Ellison, Singh and Wang will learn in the coming months if they too will go to prison. The trio pleaded guilty to their roles in the yearslong wrongdoing at FTX and sister trading firm Alameda Research, and cooperated with the US government in its case against Bankman-Fried.

“In the vast majority of white collar cases, the cooperators get zero jail time,” former federal prosecutor Jordan Estes said.

But that doesn’t mean Ellison, Singh and Wang can rest easy. Former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow was sentenced to six years in prison in 2006 after signing on as a cooperating witness in the government’s high-profile investigation. Scott Sullivan, the former WorldCom CFO who was a government witness in the $11 billion accounting fraud case, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2005.

PCAOB Sanctions PwC Australia for Violations Related to Reporting and Quality Control Monitoring Requirements

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) today announced a settled disciplinary order (PDF) sanctioning PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (“PwC Australia” or the “Firm”) for violations of PCAOB rules and quality control standards. Specifically, the sanctions address the Firm’s failure to timely report the initiation and conclusion of proceedings against the Firm by the Australian Tax Practitioners Board (TPB).

The TPB proceedings related to failures on the part of the Firm to properly manage conflicts of interest that arose from the participation of certain partners in confidential consultations with the Australian government, and concerns that confidential information was impermissibly shared by certain partners with others, including existing and prospective clients. PCAOB Rule 2203, Special Reports, requires registered public accounting firms to file Form 3s to disclose reportable events, including the initiation and conclusion of disciplinary proceedings against the firm, no later than thirty days after the occurrence of the event.

Crypto Transfers to Russian Exchange Worth $20 Billion Probed by US, UK

The US and UK are reviewing more than $20 billion of cryptocurrency transactions that passed through a Russia-based virtual exchange, according to people familiar with the matter, as part of allied efforts to crack down on the sanctions evasion that’s supporting Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The payments under scrutiny went through Moscow-based crypto exchange Garantex using the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency Tether, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that hasn’t yet been made public. The transfers have taken place since Garantex was sanctioned by the US and UK on suspicion of enabling financial crimes and illicit transactions in Russia, they said.

Australian Regulator Wins First Greenwashing Enforcement Action

As ESG-related litigation has developed, one definitive trend has been the emergence of litigation involving allegations of “greenwashing” – that is, claims alleging that companies overstated their ESG credentials in order to win business, attract customers, or score virtue points. To date, the greenwashing claims have emerged primarily in the U.S. and Europe. Now, Australia is getting into the act, as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has brought and won its first greenwashing civil penalty action. As discussed below, the action involved claims that Vanguard’s Australian affiliate made misleading statements about its ESG-sorting processes for one of its index funds.