According to a statement made public on February 5, FTX’s new management is seeking to recover the political contributions that Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives have made through February 28.

This action is being taken as part of bankruptcy proceedings for the cryptocurrency exchange, as well as an effort to repay the exchange’s creditors. Andy Dietderich, a lawyer for the dissolved company FTX, said that as of January 11, the company has “recovered $5 billion in cash and liquid cryptocurrency.” The total amount of the liabilities amounts to about $9 billion.

As mentioned in the aforementioned statement, “The FTX Debtors are sending confidential messages to political figures, political action funds and other recipients of contributions or other payments that were made by or at the direction of the FTX Debtors, Samuel Bankman-Fried, or other officers or principals of the FTX Debtors” (collectively, the “FTX Taxpayers”). The FTX Debtors have demanded that these recipients return the cash in question to them by February 28, 2023.

With a contribution of $5.2 million, Bankman-Fried ranked as the second-largest “giving CEO” to the Joe Biden campaign in 2020. In the midterm elections that took place in November 2022, he revealed that he was a “big contributor” to politicians running for the Democratic and Republican parties.

Prosecutors in the United States are investigating the contributions that FTX made to various political parties and politicians. According to court records filed in January, FTX creditors are evaluating contributions totaling $93 million that were made between March 2020 and November 2022.

On December 19, FTX’s new management proposed a process through which elected officials and political organizations could voluntarily refund money that FTX executives had contributed in the past. Donations that have not been claimed will have to be reimbursed with interest from now on:

“The FTX Debtors reserve the right to initiate actions before the Bankruptcy Court to demand the return of said payments, accruing interest from the date in which any action is initiated”, which means that “in the event that said payments are not returned voluntarily, the FTX Debtors reserve the right to demand the return of such payments.”

In addition to these measures, FTX’s new leadership has devised plans to liquidate non-core interests that are valued at $4.6 billion. These investments include FTX companies such as LedgerX and Embed, as well as those located in Japan and Europe. The companies are completely separate from FTX and keep their finances in separate accounts.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has also established a task force to “trace and recover” customer funds that went missing during the FTX exchange crash. This task force will also be responsible for overseeing any investigations or legal proceedings associated with the collapse of the exchange. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges related to the corporation’s fallout.