Kenne Michael 
Prosecutors in the United States have asked the judge presiding over the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried to prohibit his legal team from making any arguments regarding the potential recovery of FTX customer assets invested in Anthropic.
In April 2022, Bankman-Fried invested $500 million in the artificial intelligence startup; however, the U.S. government is preparing to present evidence that the Anthropic investment was made using misappropriated FTX customer deposits.
Anthropic has been in the news recently due to its efforts to raise new capital from investors, including Amazon and Google, which could result in a $20–$30 billion valuation.
U.S. prosecutors note that recent reports centered on the potentially high valuation of the company would also increase the value of Bankman-Fried’s investment, which could aid the potential recovery of funds for FTX customers and other creditors in the FTX bankruptcy.
According to the letter submitted to Judge Lewis Kaplan, the legal teams representing the U.S. government and Bankman-Fried discussed various issues that could be brought up during the cross-examination of witnesses.
The legal team for Bankman-Fried intends to present evidence regarding the current value of the former FTX CEO’s $500 million investment in Anthropic made in 2022.
The prosecutors believe this evidence will be used to support the argument that FTX customers and other victims will be entirely compensated for their losses, which the court has previously deemed an “impermissible purpose:”
“Such evidence would therefore be wholly irrelevant, and present a substantial danger of unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, and waste of time.”
The government asserts that the indictment against Bankman-Fried centers on wire fraud allegations involving FTX customer deposits for investments and other purposes.
The prosecution argues that any mention of investments that may have been profitable is ultimately irrelevant and immaterial to the offenses under consideration by the jury.
The government also asserts that, while it intends to introduce evidence of Bankman-Fried’s alleged misappropriation of customer deposits, which resulted in massive losses on FTX’s balance sheet, it has no intention of introducing evidence regarding the ultimate losses of victims once the FTX bankruptcy process has concluded.
