The ineligible manufacture has emerged arsenic a large victor amid cryptocurrency collapses similar FTX and Celsius, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for lawyers.
Lawyers, accountants, consultants, analysts and different professionals person collected astatine slightest $700 cardinal successful fees from the bankruptcies from large crypto firms implicit the past year, according to a study and an investigation by The New York Times.
The calculated magnitude includes the costs charged arsenic portion of crypto bankruptcy cases of 5 crypto firms specified arsenic FTX, Celsius Network, Voyager Digital, BlockFi and Genesis Global betwixt July 5, 2022 and July 31, 2023. The fig is apt to turn importantly arsenic the cases unfold successful the adjacent future, with Sam Bankman Fried’s proceedings coming successful October.

According to the data, the ineligible experts progressive successful the FTX lawsuit are the biggest winners of cryptocurrency bankruptcies, charging a full of $326 million. The instrumentality steadfast Sullivan & Cromwell, which manages FTX’s bankruptcy, has reportedly charged implicit $110 cardinal successful ineligible fees, successful summation to $500,000 successful expenses.
Andrew Dietderich reportedly noted that the costs are peculiarly driven by deficiency of wide cryptocurrency regulations, which made the cases much analyzable and time-consuming.
Kirkland & Ellis — which handles Celsius, Genesis and Voyager bankruptcies — has billed $101 cardinal for its work, with $2.5 cardinal successful expenses, the NYT analysts said. Alvarez & Marsal, a turnaround absorption firm, has reportedly charged much than $125 cardinal for its enactment connected FTX, Celsius and Genesis.
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Some of the archetypal reports indicating that firms similar Sullivan & Cromwell would reap a luck from its crypto bankruptcy enactment surfaced successful January 2023. The steadfast reportedly had much than 150 radical moving connected the FTX lawsuit astatine the time, including 30 partners with rates exceeding $2,000 per hour.
Amid concerns implicit precocious ineligible fees, the United States bankruptcy tribunal appointed Katherine Stadler arsenic interest examiner for the FTX case. In June, Stadler reported that the squad moving connected FTX had requested much than $200 cardinal successful fees since its November bankruptcy, stating that the fees were reasonable.
SBF’s ineligible squad is continuing to combat against the U.S. Department of Justice, asking the tribunal connected Sept. 1 to deny each caller requests by the authority. As antecedently reported by Cointelegraph, 1 of the DOJ’s requests included an entreaty to ban each SBF’s 7 adept witnesses from testifying successful court. Some of the witnesses could cost SBF up to $1,200 per hour to testify.
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