30k Aussies left in the lurch after FTX Australia's licence was suspended

Three members of a Sydney-based investment and advisory firm have been assigned to help Australians who were impacted by the suspension of Sam Bankman-Fried’s former crypto empire.

FTX Australia, one of the largest Forex brokers in Australia, has had its licence revoked by the Australian Securities and Investments

Commission (ASIC). This leaves around 30,000 Australian investors without access to their funds and raises questions about how this could have happened. ASIC has not released any information about why FTX’s licence was revoked, but an investigation is underway. In the meantime, affected investors are left in limbo.

FTX Australia’s financial license has been suspended by the country’s financial markets regulator. This is after a voluntary administrator was appointed in order to attempt to help out the approximate 30,000 Australians and 132 companies based in Australia who are trying to get their money back from FTX.

On Nov. 16, local time, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced that it would suspend the Australian Financial Services license of FTX’s local entity until May 15, 2023.

Prior to its suspension, FTX Australia was allowed to create a market for derivatives and foreign exchange contracts to Australian-based retail and wholesale clients under an AFS license. When Australian traders signed up digital asset trading, their request would be routed through FTX Australia.

FTX Australia will only be allowed to provide a few financial services that directly relate to ending derivative contracts with customers until Dec. 19.

On Nov. 11, John Mouawad, Scott Langdon and Rahul Goyal of investment and advisory firm KordaMentha were appointed voluntary administrators of FTX Australia and its subsidiary FTX Express in Sydney, suspending the company’s operations.

KordaMentha will try to retrieve the funds of over 30,000 Australian investors and 132 businesses because of the terrible FTX fallout, as stated in a Nov. 14 article published by the Australian Financial Review (AFR).

The report also mentioned that FTX Australia employees are working with KordaMentha’s administrators to settle the issue. Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX founder and former CEO, is one of the three directors of FTX Australia.

FTX Australia’s customer-facing operations were suspended nearly eight months after it was established on March 20. The firm also set up a Sydney-based office for its five employees.

On Nov. 11, Bankman-Fried resigned as FTX’s CEO and 130 companies related to FTX including FTX US and its trading partner firm Alameda Research filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States Code.

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