According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), an agreement was reached to return the donations received from the FTX exchange.
The MET recently announced that it will return the donations received last year from the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Before declaring bankruptcy, the digital currency exchange distributed millions of dollars in donations to various entities and politicians. The company declared bankruptcy in November 2022.
Thus, the New York museum publicly assured that it had reached an agreement in good faith with the debtors to return their funds. The MET sent a brief to the Delaware bankruptcy court last Friday to notify its willingness to return the money. This is the same court where FTX filed for bankruptcy.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art received the sum of $550,000 in two separate donations. The first of these was in March 2022, and it included $300,000 dollars. The rest, $250,000, was received in May 2022.
FTX Donations to the MET Will Be Returned
FTX’s donations to the MET are not among the largest the exchange has made in the United States. In any case, the museum promised to return that collection. The decision would have been made after “negotiations in good faith and on equal terms.”
It is worth mentioning that the funds received by the museum were from West Realm Shires Services, the managing firm of FTX US. Currently, the management of the bankrupt exchange makes every effort to recover the money donated by the company under the management of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF).
The recovery efforts began in December, that is, immediately after the scandal that led to the bankruptcy of one of the most important exchanges. All the donations would have occurred between March 2020 and November 2022.
Millions of dollars in souvenirs were given out to politicians and organizations during that period, court documents show. The complaints suggest that some 180 US politicians received donations from FTX. Of these, only 19 returned the funds or expressed their willingness to do so.
The Magnitude of SBF´s Gifts
As already stated, the FTX board is launching a strong campaign to get the donation funds back from the exchange. In this sense, he would have sent numerous confidential letters to the politicians who benefited, urging them to return the amounts received. According to various portals, the liquid funds delivered would amount to $5.5 billion dollars.
The company’s own CEO, John Jay Ray, refers to this task as a “herculean” effort. The executive says all options are on the table to ensure that donations are recovered, including those given to charities.
According to SBF himself, all active funds are usable to support defrauded users of the exchange. In a blog post, cited by ABC News, the former head of the exchange offers some details on the donations issue. “I think it is likely that FTX would have been able to win back all the clients if there had been a concerted effort to increase liquidity,” he says.
Thus, donations made by FTX are a hot topic in the political world of the United States. It is likely that if the tendency of politicians to refuse to return the funds continues, it could lead the company to sue them publicly. However, it is possible that FTX will increase the pressure, and agreements similar to the one reached with the MET will be reached.
By Audy Castaneda
