Cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading and its affiliates will resume paying wages to employees globally and to some non-U.S. contractors and service providers, according to a press release on Monday.
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Fast facts
- “With the Court’s approval of our First Day motions and the work being done on global cash management, I am pleased that the FTX group is resuming ordinary course cash payments of salaries and benefits to our remaining employees around the world,” said John J. Ray III, FTX’s newly appointed CEO who had managed the liquidation of Enron in 2001.
- At a hearing for FTX last week, the court approved relief to allow the operation of a new global cash management system and payments to its key vendors.
- The court said in a hearing order document published on Nov. 22 that the debtors – FTX and its affiliates – may not pay any portion of the unpaid employee compensation that exceeds US$40,000 in the aggregate.
- But this relief did not extend to employees and contractors of Bahama-based FTX Digital Markets, Australia-based FTX Australia and FTX Express, as these companies fell beyond the scope of Chapter 11 of the U.S.’s bankruptcy code.
- FTX Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of FTX, is preparing to resume withdrawals by the end of 2022 to Japanese customers, said an unnamed FTX Japan executive to local broadcaster NHK last week.
- See related article: BlockFi files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, laying off about 200 staff