SBF Resists Order to Appear in Voyager Digital’s Bankruptcy Hearing

Bankman-Fried’s attorneys claim the subpoena was unreasonable and was not issued properly. 

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder and former CEO of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is resisting an order to testify at the bankruptcy hearing of crypto broker Voyager Digital.

On Tuesday, SBF’s attorneys asked a federal judge to quash the order because it was not served properly, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

SBF Fights Voyager’s Subpoena
Recall that on February 18, the committee representing Voyager’s unsecured creditors served SBF and other top FTX and Alameda Research executives subpoenas. The order requested they appear in court for a remote deposition with the required documents.

CryptoPotatoreported that the other executives who received the subpoenas included FTX co-founder Gary Wang, former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, and FTX’s head of product Ramnik Aurora, among others.

The subpoenas are focused on FTX’s attempt to buy out Voyager’s assets after the brokerage firm filed for bankruptcy. The latter argued that the buyout attempt was unreasonable as the offer was made to gain publicity for FTX.

Notably, Alameda Research is also trying to collect roughly $446 million from Voyager, related to crypto loans provided to the former before the latter went bankrupt.
The subpoena, delivered to SBF’s mother due to his absence, requests that he appear in person on February 23 at McDermott Will & Emery offices in San Francisco. Before that, though, SBF was supposed to turn in 49 separate documents by February 20.

An “Unreasonable” Order
SBF’s attorneys have asked a federal judge in California to block the order, arguing that it was not properly served and may cause the FTX founder to invoke his Fifth Amendment constitutional right to avoid incriminating himself.

The Fifth Amendment, also known as the right to remain silent, guarantees that the government does not compel someone to provide incriminating information about himself. Such a rule is applicable for subpoena orders and other legal processes.

Meanwhile, representatives of Voyager’s unsecured creditors disclosed that they were negotiating a deal to delay pretrial information sharing, including the subpoena. However, SBF’s lawyer Marc R. Lewis told the judge he was not assured of the claim.