Bahamas Court Favors SBF’s Bid to Contest Post-Extradition Charges

In a temporary respite for Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX was able to block the addition of new charges in his United States indictment. The ruling comes as the former exec sought an opportunity to make arguments in the country to drop a few existing charges against him.

The court order is expected to delay the case in the US.

• According to a filing this week, the Bahamas Supreme Court Judge Loren Klein granted leave to Bankman-Fried to commence proceedings for judicial review.
• Klein asserted that the government of the Caribbean nation cannot file additional charges until the legal process has finished while adding that issues raised by Bankman-Fried had “a reasonable prospect of success.”
• The ruling is in response to the Bahamas government’s move to proceed with new charges. However, the former FTX CEO managed to persuade the court to temporarily block the island nation’s attorney general from deciding on that consent for now.
• The judge also directed all the parties involved to conduct the review “in an expedited manner.”
• Subsequently, Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Mark Cohen, said in a new filing that the exec intends to file an application for judicial review as directed by the Bahamas Supreme Court and to continue pursuing his legal rights in the country.
• The federal prosecutors in Manhattan earlier stated that they would dismiss five charges against Bankman-Fried if the Bahamas did not agree with them. This included – foreign bribery, bank fraud, and conspiracy.
• These charges were in addition to the exec’s initial eight-count indictment last December and were added after his extradition.