FTX to Sell EU Assets After Dismissing $323 Million Lawsuit

The lawsuit against FTX Europe’s original owners has been dropped after a settlement was reached by the bankrupt FTX.

FTX Europe’s original owners had the lawsuit against them dropped due to a settlement reached by the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

The lawsuit aimed to recover over 323.5 million dollars from the European unit of the bankrupt Bitcoin exchange. While processing the settlement, the institution agreed to sell its assets in the European Union.

Patrick Gruhn and Robin Matzke, co-founders of FTX Europe were the target of the lawsuit filed in July 2023. In addition, it was directed toward Brandon Williams, who is employed by Cosima Capital, as well as Lorem Ipsum Holding UG, which is a German holding company under Matzke’s ownership.

FTX Europe, known initially as Digital Assets DA AG and was bought for almost $400 million over transactions in 2020 and 2021, was the subject of the allegations that were brought up in the case.

Furthermore, the group asserted that its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, had initiated the acquisition solely for personal profit, even though the EU wing had a restricted operational status at the time of the organization’s purchase.

The company did not sell FTX Europe after filing for bankruptcy in November 2022. Therefore, all attempts to sell it were unsuccessful. Because of this, a case was filed to recover allegedly stolen assets.

Following the settlement conditions, Gruhn and Matzke have reached an agreement to repurchase the assets of FTX Europe for a sum of $32.7 million, which is a fraction of the initial investment, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Ratification of the proposed settlement would end a lengthy legal struggle that had been going on for some time.Documents submitted to the court on Thursday granted FTX permission to sell its investment in the artificial intelligence business Anthropic.

Anthropic’s shares owned by the virtual currency exchange that had gone bankrupt were initially submitted for sale at the beginning of February 2024.

In June 2023, an earlier attempt was made to sell the interest, however, this attempt was unsuccessful because of the protracted investigation of the bidders.

At the start of 2021, FTX and its subsidiary Alameda contributed a total of $500 million to Anthropic. Given that Anthropic’s valuation has skyrocketed to $15 billion, it is believed that the stake is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion.

Anthropic’s desirability as an investment opportunity significantly stands out due to the substantial increase in valuation. During January 2024, the FTX estate expressed confidence in fully compensating its customers.

In the meantime, Sam Bankman-Fried is slated to be sentenced next month due to his conviction for fraud from the previous year.

Furthermore, it is predicted that the length of his prison sentence would be a difficult topic in the processes that will soon take place.