John J. Ray III, who is the new CEO of the now defunct crypto exchange FTX, told a judge in Delaware on Monday that he billed the exchange $690,000 for little under two months’ worth of work guiding the exchange through the bankruptcy process. According to prior FTX news, Ray previously disclosed to the court that he bills $1,300 per hour.
FTX’s New CEO Charges $690K
After the infamous founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned as chief executive officer and filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Ray has been said to rack up a total of $690,000 in hourly fees. This ranges from the 11th of November to the end of December month of last year. In an effort to recoup billions of dollars worth of funds to reimburse FTX’s customers and creditors, Ray has been tasked with the responsibility of supervising the bankruptcy process that FTX is going through.
Ray has stated in the past that he bills $1,300 an hour for his services, which indicates that he worked 75 hours per week while he was attempting to bring order to the company’s chaotic finances for nearly two months. Almost two decades prior, the Wall Street restructuring professional–who handled Enron’s bankruptcy–received an annualized salary of over $1.2 million while serving as chairman and CEO of the defunct energy giant. According to the claims, he was also successful in another bankruptcy case, when he racked up 156 billable hours over the course of two months and earned a total of $120,582 in compensation.
John J. Ray III Takes On FTX
John J. Ray III had previously highlighted that the exchange was managed by a “very small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls necessary for a company that is entrusted with other people’s money or assets.” Additionally, as per other reported FTX news, Ray was recently contacted by Bankman-Fried over email, requesting him to meet in person for more elaborate discussions.
While accusing FTX’s former management of “old-fashioned embezzlement” during his congressional testimony in December, Ray was quoted as saying:
"I’ve just never seen anything like it in all 40 years of doing restructuring work and corporate legal work."
According to Ray’s findings, the process of recovering assets may take more time than usual because of FTX’s lack of records and proper bookkeeping, since the company’s founding. Moreover, he stated that they were literally dealing with a sort of “paperless bankruptcy” in regard to how the firm was constructed.
