A “substantial amount” of FTX Group’s assets “have either been stolen or are missing,” an attorney representing the firm told a bankruptcy court Tuesday in the company’s first court appearance since its rapid descent into insolvency.
“Unfortunately, the FTX debtors were not particularly well run, and that is an understatement,” James Bromley, co-head of the restructuring practice at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, told a judge in Wilmington, Delaware. “We have probably witnessed one of the most abrupt and difficult corporate collapses in the history of corporate America.”
In the hearing Tuesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey approved standard motions allowing FTX to continue operating and paying employees while Chief Executive Officer John J. Ray III and advisers pore over the company’s books in search of cash, cryptocurrency and assets that could be sold to help repay creditors. He also temporarily allowed the names of key creditors to remain secret.
