(Bloomberg) — FTX has filed a lawsuit against Anthony Scaramucci and his hedge fund SkyBridge Capital as part of a broader effort to recover money from the bankrupt company’s creditors.
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The lawsuit against the former White House communications director is one of 23 filed Friday in Delaware bankruptcy court. Plaintiffs also include digital asset exchange Crypto.com and political groups such as Mark Zuckerberg-founded FWD.US, according to court documents.
FTX claims that during the crypto winter of 2022, founder Sam Bankman-Fried “spent a year-round campaign of buying influence and making lavish and flashy ‘investments’.”
“One connection that Bankman-Fried invested significant time and money in” was Scaramucci, because of his “established financial, political and social” network, the filing said.
FTX is now going after these investments, claiming they “provided little to no benefit” and “instead served only to strengthen Bankman-Fried’s position in the world of politics and traditional finance.”
The bankrupt crypto firm claims that Bankman-Fried invested $67 million in various SkyBridge businesses in 2022 because Scaramucci was “looking for a bailout.” According to the documents, SkyBridge’s assets under management have fallen from a 2015 high of $9 billion to $2.2 billion.
A representative for Scaramucci declined to comment.
In September 2022, Bankman-Fried and Scaramucci announced that FTX’s venture arm would acquire a 30% stake in SkyBridge. Financial terms were not disclosed at the time. Scaramucci said at the time that the investment reflected him “thinking about SkyBridge’s next decade.”
Within a few months, FTX had filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on fraud charges.
The business is FTX Trad. Ltd., Bankr. D. Del., No. 22-11068, suit 8-11-24.
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