“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of reliable financial information as here. From the integrity of compromised systems and flawed regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.”

That no-nonsense shot is of John Ray, the new CEO of FTX, in a filing with the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

Ray, it must be emphasized, has more than 40 years of legal and restructuring experience, including the presidency of the collapsed energy company Enron in 2001.