FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried intends responsible “counsel recommendation” supplied by the corporate’s inner authorized workforce and Fenwick & West, a outstanding Silicon Valley legislation agency, in his case towards the U.S. authorities.
In an Aug. 23 letter to Choose Lewis Kaplan, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys wrote that their shopper obtained authorized recommendation from Fenwick in making a few of his selections, together with utilizing auto-delete options and ephemeral messaging purposes like Sign. The attorneys additionally identified that the legislation agency supplied authorized recommendation on different points, together with the loans given to FTX and Alameda executives and intercompany funds between FTX and Alameda.
In keeping with the attorneys, Bankman-Fried was performing in “good religion” as Fenwick Legal professionals and in-house counsel for FTX, together with Dan Friedberg, Can Solar, Ryne Miller, and others, have been concerned in reviewing and approving selections associated to those issues and others. They added:
“Proof of the defendant’s reliance on counsel is related to the query of intent and isn’t restricted to conditions the place the protection can set up that the defendant formally sought out the recommendation of counsel, obtained authorized recommendation, and adopted the recommendation given.”
Fenwick is a number one U.S. legislation agency targeted on the expertise and life sciences sectors. Among the legislation agency’s main purchasers embody Coinbase, OpenSea, and Meta.
Fenwick was but to reply to CryptoSlate’s request for remark as of press time.
In the meantime, the letter additionally blamed the U.S. Division of Justice’s request for extra info, noting that the federal government had hindered the protection workforce from getting acceptable paperwork that may have aided its case from Fenwick.
The attorneys mentioned:
“It’s galling that the Authorities is requesting particular paperwork from the protection when the Authorities helped make sure that we couldn’t get hold of these very paperwork.”
On Aug. 22, Bankman-Fried pleaded not responsible to wire fraud and conspiracy prices, together with his attorneys complaining concerning the poor jail situations. His trial is ready to start in October.
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