International Bankruptcy, Restructuring, True Crime and Appeals - Court Audio Recording Podcast

Audio of the first hearing on the bankruptcy court record held on November 22, 2022 (following a chambers conference) in the FTX/Alameda et al. bankruptcy proceedings pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware under chapter 11 case number 22-11068.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available, and the work of my fellow Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value podcasters with a BOOST.

Audio of the hearing on the bankruptcy court record held on December 14, 2022 in the FTX/Alameda et al. bankruptcy proceedings pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware under chapter 11 case number 22-11068.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available, and the work of my fellow Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value podcasters with a BOOST.

Audio of the hearing on the bankruptcy court record held on December 16, 2022 in the FTX/Alameda et al. bankruptcy proceedings pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware under chapter 11 case number 22-11068.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available, and the work of my fellow Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value podcasters with a BOOST.

Audio of the hearing on the bankruptcy court record held on January 4, 2023 in the FTX/Alameda et al. bankruptcy proceedings pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware under chapter 11 case number 22-11068.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available, and the work of my fellow Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value podcasters with a BOOST.

Audio of the hearing on the bankruptcy court record held on January 11, 2023 in the FTX/Alameda et al. bankruptcy proceedings pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware under chapter 11 case number 22-11068.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available, and the work of my fellow Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value podcasters with a BOOST.

Audio of the hearing on the bankruptcy court record held on January 20, 2023 in the FTX/Alameda et al. bankruptcy proceedings pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware under chapter 11 case number 22-11068.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available, and the work of my fellow Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value podcasters with a BOOST.

Audio of the trial concerning whether to appoint an independent examiner held on February 6, 2023 in the FTX/Alameda et al. bankruptcy proceedings pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware under chapter 11 case number 22-11068.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available, and the work of my fellow Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value podcasters with a BOOST.

Audio of the hearing held on February 15, 2023 (following the trial in Episode 7 concerning whether to appoint an independent examiner held on February 6, 2023) in the FTX/Alameda et al. bankruptcy proceedings pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware under chapter 11 case number 22-11068.During this February 15 hearing the bankruptcy court hands down its ruling concerning whether to appoint an independent examiner. The bankruptcy court also addresses other matters including whether to appoint a professional sometimes referred to as a "fee examiner." A fee examiner is hired in some chapter 11 bankruptcy cases to review fee applications submitted by some of the professionals billing the bankruptcy estate. A fee examiner does not typically investigate events leading up to the bankruptcy filing. In other words, a fee examiner would not typically conduct an investigation as an independent examiner would in cases where an independent examiner is appointed.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available, and the work of my fellow Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value podcasters with a BOOST.

Source: Oral Argument for In re: Voyager Digital Holdings, Inc. – CourtListener.com

official court audio from oral argument in 22-1107, 22-1110Irving Picard v Sage Associatesre net equity treatment, last statement treatment etc

This is the official oral argument audio for the appeal docketed with the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit as 23-30445 in the case styled Missouri v Biden. The oral argument audio was posted to the court's website with an 8-10-23 date (https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/oral-arg...) and is publicly available along with audio of other oral arguments.According to the wikipedia entry for Missouri v Biden:Missouri v. Biden (No. 3:22-CV-01213) is a United States federal case filed in the Western District of Louisiana involving the First Amendment. The states of Missouri and Louisiana filed suit against the U.S. government, led by Missouri's former attorney general and current U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt, asserting that the government's contact with social media services to request removal of alleged misinformation was a violation of free speech and amounted to censoring conservative views and criticism of President Joe Biden's administration.On July 4, 2023, Judge Terry A. Doughty issued a preliminary injunction against several agencies and members of the Biden administration from contacting social media services to request the blocking of material, with exceptions for material involving illegal activity. The U.S. government has appealed the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit granted a stay of Doughty's injunction on July 14, 2023.[excerpt from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missour...]

For more information about the bankruptcy proceedings, including filings on the bankruptcy court's docket, see https://cases.stretto.com/primetrustPer Decrypt:Crypto Custodian Prime Trust Files for BankruptcyA former Bank of Nevada president will oversee the Chapter 11 process, which may include the sale of all remaining Prime Trust assets.By Decrypt AI, Edited by Ryan OzawaAug 15, 2023Las Vegas-based cryptocurrency custodian Prime Trust filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, the latest setback for the troubled financial technology company.The bankruptcy filing follows Prime Trust's placement into receivership in late June by Nevada regulators, who determined the company was insolvent and unable to service customers. That action came after a series of difficulties for Prime Trust and companies connected to it over the past year....[For more see https://decrypt.co/152508/prime-trust-chapter-11-bankruptcy]

Per a recent Coindesk article https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/09/13/surprisingly-few-us-customers-want-their-bittrex-money-back/:Surprisingly Few U.S. Customers Want Their Bittrex Money BackThe U.S. Secret Service kept millions on the exchange, company lawyers told a bankruptcy court – but other creditors have been strangely reluctant to ask for their funds back....Unofficial Computer-Autogenerated Transcript, to Assist the Hearing Impaired etc.00:00:00Mr. Mosco, welcome. It's good to see you.00:00:11Good to see you too, Your Honor.00:00:14Mr. Shepard Carter, I like the tie. Is that black and orange?00:00:19This is black. No, it's not black and orange. It's dark, dark blue and orange, which are the colors of your alma mater.00:00:26The colors of my alma mater are black and orange. Oh, then it's black and orange.00:00:30Your instincts are excellent. You may proceed. Mr. Mosco, good morning again. Good to see you.00:00:35I should have known that since they were the Tigers. They are the Tigers.00:00:37We are the Tigers.00:00:39Good morning, Your Honor. We sent over to chambers a PowerPoint presentation. I can hand up an extra copy if you'd like.00:00:48I have it. Thank you.00:00:49And thanks for the Court's time today. It may seem like a bit of navel gazing going on here because there's not a controversy,00:00:58but we did want to update the Court from our last presentation, from where we are. All the work is being done behind the scenes that you haven't seen.00:01:07I appreciate that, and certainly no apology is necessary. I'm always happy to take a status report.00:01:14As you just mentioned, I really have limited visibility into most of the cases that I have, and often then it just turns into a very ugly surprise when everything blows up all at once.00:01:25So I'm hoping that's not going to happen here, but I certainly do appreciate the guidance that you're offering.00:01:31Correct, Your Honor. Just to level set and for the record, Patty Tomasko, Quinn Emanuel on behalf of the Dutters, and I'm joined by my colleague, Ken Ennis from the Young Conaway Firm.00:01:43We just wanted to go through where we were. The last presentation that we gave you, we had very low engagement from the customers that we had asked to withdraw their crypto.00:01:54As you know, the Court entered an order allowing the customers to begin withdrawing cryptocurrency and fiat currency as of June 15th is when we reopened the platform after the May 8th petition date.00:02:07So we wanted to go through that. I also want to introduce the Court to, we have a couple of the legal staff from Bittrex, Caleb Barker and David Maria.00:02:21David Maria is the General Counsel of Bittrex and Caleb Barker is the Assistant General Counsel of Bittrex.00:02:29Very good. Welcome, gentlemen.00:02:31Morning, Your Honor. If I get something wrong, which I frequently do, they will correct me and I've invited them to be live so that as we go through this, if I get something wrong, they can say, or if the Court has any questions about what we've done and all of the efforts that have gone into this and where we are with the status of the withdrawals.00:02:50I'm not going to bore the Court with the history, but as you know, we filed the bankruptcy petition on May 8th. The Court entered the customer withdrawal order on June 13th. We reopened the platform on June 15th.00:03:06This is consistent with the main goal of the case, which was to set up a process by which Bittrex USA operations could be wound down, along with the sister company Bittrex Malta, which is a Maltese organization that has been roughly out of operation since late 2018.00:03:30So to that end, if you turn to slide six, you can see our Chapter 11 timeline to where we are today.00:03:38Of course, we have a disclosure statement hearing coming up on the 27th.00:03:44Right.00:03:45And this is sort of to get everybody, you know, oriented correctly as we face that.00:03:51So far, I will say we have gotten only informal comments and nothing momentous with respect to the disclosure statement or the plan. We're getting language, incorporating it. All of that's going to plan.00:04:05Turning to slide eight, as I mentioned, we still have to comply as we're doing customer withdrawals with the various regulatory requirements for the payment.00:04:20KYC and KML stuff.00:04:22The main that I call them, Finson and OFAC.00:04:25Finson is concerned with financial crimes.00:04:29They want to have all the KYC information from the customer.00:04:32So are you really who you say you are?00:04:35And they also want to know that, you know, you're not engaging in some kind of money laundering.00:04:42So that's that's really what they're about.00:04:45OFAC is concerned with persons in foreign countries engaging in financial transactions in the U.S.00:04:54So those two regulatory requirements are built into the algorithms of the platform.00:05:00OK.00:05:03So we also wanted them to update, accept the updated terms of service, which also incorporate these regulatory requirements. And so that process has been underway.00:05:17So in conjunction with that, there was, of course, an increase in activity with the help desk.00:05:24The company engaged overtime help desk assistance.00:05:31And that has continued all the way through August 31st when the help desk was shut down, consistent with the August 31st, 2023, part eight.00:05:47So that help desk activity kind of demonstrates how much the company has been working with the customers.00:05:53There's been forty seven thousand plus customer help desk tickets and a lot.00:06:01And then the other the other interesting thing is there's two factor authentication.00:06:06Obviously, this is dealing with financial assets.00:06:08And so that process of, you know, I know in my law firm to get logged on in the morning, sometimes it takes me 15 minutes as I'm going through all of the steps.00:06:19The same thing happens on this platform. So you have two factor authentication.00:06:23You're going to get a text to your phone and an email.00:06:26And those two things combined give you, you know, the best security, high level confidence that you're dealing with the right person.00:06:37Thirty five thousand nine hundred seventy two customers have withdrawn their like kind assets for a total value of one hundred and forty three point seven six million dollars worth of crypto.00:06:48This is in addition to approximately twenty three million that was withdrawn during the April wind down period immediately before the petition was filed.00:07:00So on slide eleven. We've broken these numbers down.00:07:08By the number of customers remaining and the number of customers that have withdrawn.00:07:20So the value of crypto withdrawn is one hundred and forty three point six point seven six million broken down between Bittrex US of ninety five million and Bittrex Malta of forty eight million.00:07:39OK. So one of the things we wanted to explore was why were we getting such low levels of engagement.00:07:46And so in the beginning and so we broke it down between customers with balances over one hundred dollars and customers with balances under one hundred dollars and of the remaining customers.00:07:58Their balances are under one hundred dollars. That's the number of those is seventy seven percent of the remaining customers have balances under one hundred dollars.00:08:09So we have a combination that you've talked about earlier. We have what may be stale accounts with dated or old or ineffective contact information and then basically relatively modest amounts that nobody's necessarily wondering where my money go.00:08:25Correct your honor. OK. And I will tell you anecdotally I've been monitoring things like the Bittrex Twitter Bittrex Reddit.00:08:33You know the various sites where customers are engaging more frankly and the sentiment is you know I don't want to give you all that information to get to get thirty five dollars correct.00:08:49OK. They really are making a calculated decision. They know about it and we're going to go through the notice process in a bit. But we have also prioritized we took a list of the crypto customers that remained and we put them in in rank order of highest to lowest and we engage with them directly.00:09:11Send them an email not just a group email sent them an email and said hey you've got this much you need to get it off. And so that's where we've seen a lot of success. You know understandably.00:09:21OK. So 11 of the top 50 customers by balance have withdrawn substantially all their assets for a total of eight point seven million of withdrawn balances. Five hundred and seventeen of the seven hundred and one users with a balance over one hundred thousand have withdrawn substantially all of their assets.00:09:44And so that you know prioritizing the large dollar dollar customers has really paid off in terms of getting the crypto off. Most of the remaining accounts are inactive and have been inactive for a year or more.00:09:58Fifty one point two percent have been active in the last two years. Only forty one point one percent of the remaining funds are associated with user accounts that have shown no activity since December 31 of 2019.00:10:15The story with them is most of them signed up with inadequate information.00:10:20OK.00:10:24Also we've been actively engaging with the government on a couple of accounts. Some of the accounts were involved in criminal proceedings criminal forfeiture proceedings and we've cooperated with the U.S. Attorney's Office the Justice Department and the SEC to withdraw those amounts that were subject to those criminal forfeiture proceedings.00:10:45The Secret Service had one of our largest accounts of six point two million dollars.00:10:55We worked with that agency for them to successfully withdraw that amount.00:11:00OK. As I said.00:11:03Notice has been extremely robust. We knew it was going to be a large number of potential creditors. We we did not spar

official publicly available audio

publicly available hearing audio

oral argument re revocation of bail, incarceration of SBF pending trial, sixth amendment issues, freedom of speech issues, first amendment issues, preparation for criminal trial