FTX sues Scaramucci to recoup money put into showy investments

(Bloomberg) — FTX filed a lawsuit against Anthony Scaramucci and his hedge fund SkyBridge Capital as part of a broader effort to claw back money for creditors of the bankrupt company.

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The lawsuit against the former White House communications director is one of 23 filed in the bankruptcy court of Delaware on Friday. Plaintiffs also include digital-asset exchange Crypto.com and political groups such as the Mark Zuckerberg-founded FWD.US, according to court documents.

FTX alleges that during the crypto winter of 2022, founder Sam Bankman-Fried engaged “in a campaign of influence-buying throughout the year and making lavish and showy ‘investments’.”

“One connection that Bankman-Fried poured significant time and money into” was Scaramucci, for his “established financial, political, and social” network, according to the filing.

FTX is now going after these investments as it claims they “conveyed little to no benefit,” and “instead served only to prop up Bankman-Fried’s standing in the worlds of politics and traditional finance.”

The bankrupt crypto firm alleges that Bankman-Fried invested $67 million into various SkyBridge endeavors in 2022 as Scaramucci had been “seeking a bailout.” SkyBridge’s assets under management had fallen from a 2015 high of $9 billion to $2.2 billion, according to the filing.

A representative for Scaramucci declined to comment.

In September 2022, Bankman-Fried and Scaramucci announced that the venture arm of FTX would acquire a 30% stake in SkyBridge. Financial terms were not disclosed at the time. Scaramucci said then that the investment reflected that he was “thinking about the next decade of SkyBridge.”

Within a few months, FTX had filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried had been arrested in the Bahamas on fraud charges.

The case is FTX Trad. Ltd., Bankr. D. Del., No. 22-11068, suit 11/8/24.

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