FTX bankruptcy fees near $20 million for 51 days of work

FTX’s high bankruptcy, authorized, and monetary advisors have billed the corporate greater than $19.6 million in fees for work carried out in 2022, based on Tuesday bankruptcy court docket filings. Greater than $10 million of that was for work carried out in Nov. 2022, as Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire entered bankruptcy safety in Delaware.

The corporations will initially solely be paid somewhat over $15.5 million, or 80% of the worth of their work, underneath a court-ordered interim compensation plan.

The regulation corporations that billed FTX are Sullivan & Cromwell, Landis Rath & Cobb, and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Skilled advisor Alvarez & Marsal and monetary advisor AlixPartners additionally billed the corporate.

Some of the work that the corporations billed for concerned conferences with different firms that additionally have been billing FTX for their time, or concerned corresponding with former and present executives, together with Caroline Ellison, the previous CEO of Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Analysis.

Landis Rath & Cobb and Sullivan & Cromwell, FTX’s main authorized corporations, billed the corporate a mixed $10.7 million for over 8,400 hours of work. Landis Rath & Cobb billed $1.16 million for work carried out between Nov. 11 and Nov. 30.

Sullivan & Cromwell, a goal for each lawmakers and Bankman-Fried over their pre-petition work with FTX, sought over $9.5 million in compensation for over 6,500 billable hours, within the interval between Nov. 12 and Nov. 30. Over a 3rd of these billable hours, totaling over $4.8 million, have been for the work of companions, who sometimes cost the best hourly charge.

Sullivan & Cromwell assigned over two dozen companions to FTX’s case, based on the filings. Jim Bromley, a associate at Sullivan & Cromwell and a lead legal professional on the case, billed over 178 hours for the weeks between Nov. 12 and Nov. 30.

The authorized filings supply a glimpse into the ferocious work carried out by advisors to untangle FTX’s complicated internet of accounts and slipshod accounting requirements. Sullivan & Cromwell legal professionals spent over 1,900 hours in November alone on work associated to analyzing and recovering FTX’s world asset base, based on the filings.

Alvarez & Marsal, an advisory agency, billed $1.9 million for over 2,300 hours of work on “business operations,” assembly with legal professionals, FTX executives, analyzing FTX’s holdings utilizing blockchain explorers, and reviewing “cybersecurity scenarios.” These operations included a number of hours in November corresponding with and calling Ellison, 5.3 hours in a single day imaging iPad information and different digital units, and a first-day listening to convention name that lasted 2.5 hours.

Quinn Emanuel, which billed over $1.5 million for work carried out between November and December, assigned over a dozen legal professionals to the case, 9 of whom have been companions. One of these companions, Sascha Rand, billed over $13,000 for a single day’s work in November, corresponding and reviewing first-day points. One other Quinn lawyer filed for over $17,000 on a “non-working travel” day journey starting Nov. 21, returning on Nov. 22.

AlixPartners, a monetary consulting agency, billed $1.1 million for work carried out over the course of somewhat greater than a month, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 31.

FTX’s advisors aren’t entitled to their full fees but. Beneath an interim compensation order, skilled advisors are paid 80% of their filed fees, supplied that no objection is filed. Full compensation for authorized and advisor fees won’t happen till a last payment software is filed, every time FTX’s bankruptcy saga concludes.

That does not imply that advisors will not get their due, nonetheless. A 2019 Federal Reserve study stated skilled and consulting fees in Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy have been over $2.56 billion.

Attorneys for Sullivan & Cromwell did $40,000 price of work simply to look in FTX’s first bankruptcy listening to on Nov. 22, primarily based on court docket filings of hours billed and hourly charges.



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