Jury finds SBF guilty on all charges, sentencing set for March 2024: Law Decoded

Published

6 months ago

November 6, 2023

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Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried’s public trial in a New York court ended with the jury finding him guilty on all seven charges on Nov. 3, including two counts of wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of securities fraud, one count of commodities fraud conspiracy and one count of money laundering conspiracy. He will return to court for sentencing by Judge Lewis Kaplan on March 28, 2024. Government prosecutors will recommend a sentence, but Kaplan will have the final say.

Bankman-Fried’s crimes each carry a maximum sentence of five to 20 years in prison, with the wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy charges carrying a maximum 20-year sentence. In a press conference outside the court, United States Attorney Damian Williams called Bankman-Fried’s crimes “a multibillion-dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto” and one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.

Meanwhile, the current claims pricing of FTX has reached a maximum of 57%, partly due to the valuation of artificial intelligence (AI) companies that the now-bankrupt crypto exchange previously invested in. FTX claims value has jumped to the highest spot when compared with other bankrupt crypto firms, such as Celsius with 35–40%, Genesis with about 50%, Alameda Research with 10% and Three Arrows Capital with only 7–9%.

FTX has also requested the bankruptcy court in Delaware allow it to sell certain key trust fund assets, including from crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments and custody service provider Bitwise, valued at around $744 million. The latest request by FTX debtors for the sale of trust assets comes after the court had earlier approved the liquidation of nearly $3.4 billion in crypto assets.

U.S. gets new AI safety standards

U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order establishing new standards for AI safety and security. Biden’s order stated it is building off previous actions taken, including AI safety commitments from 15 leading companies in the industry. The new standards have six primary points, along with plans for the ethical use of AI in the government, privacy practices for citizens and steps for protecting consumer privacy.

The first standard requires developers of the most powerful AI system to share safety test results and “critical information” with the government. Secondly, the National Institute of Standards and Technology will develop standardized tools and tests for ensuring AI’s safety, security and trustworthiness. The administration also aims to protect against the risk of AI usage to engineer “dangerous biological materials” through new biological synthesis screening standards.

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FCA explains how to comply with its crypto promotion rules

Rules for crypto asset promotion that came into force in the United Kingdom on Oct. 8 have led to some confusion, judging from the low level of compliance. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) responded with additional guidance for crypto firms to help them fall into line. The new 32-page guidance does not create new obligations for crypto firms, but the authors noted that it reflected a new “secondary international competitiveness objective” in addition to addressing its expectations for firms’ domestic behavior. The guidance section of the text emphasized key segments of the rules and other pertinent legal documents. The second section gives detailed answers to questions submitted during the consultation phase.

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Switzerland kicks off its wholesale CBDC pilot

The Swiss National Bank (SNB), six commercial banks and the SIX Swiss Exchange will work together to pilot the issuance of wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in the nation, officially known as the Swiss franc wCBDC. The pilot project dedicated to wholesale CBDC, named Helvetia Phase III, will test the efficacy of a Swiss franc wCBDC in settling digital securities transactions. The pilot builds on the findings of the first two phases — Helvetia Phases I and II — conducted by the BIS Innovation Hub, the SNB and SIX. The Swiss wCBDC pilot project will be hosted on SDX and use the infrastructure of Swiss Interbank Clearing. According to the announcement, the pilot will run from December 2023 to June 2024.

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Politics

Bitfinex database breach ‘seems fake,’ says CTO

Published

2 hours ago

May 5, 2024

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<div>Bitfinex database breach 'seems fake,' says CTO</div>

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino explained that if the hacking group was telling the truth, they would have asked for a ransom, but he “couldn’t find any request.”

Politics

Labour taking ‘Tory crown jewel’ feels like a momentum shift

Published

5 hours ago

May 5, 2024

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Labour taking 'Tory crown jewel' feels like a momentum shift

It was a wafer-thin victory, but a huge win.

The symbolism of Labour taking the West Midlands mayor, a jewel in the Tory crown, could be felt in the room as Labour activists gathered in Birmingham to celebrate the win with their new mayor Richard Parker and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

There are moments on election journeys when the momentum shifts – and this win felt like one of them.

“We humbly asked [the voters] to put their trust and confidence in a changed Labour Party and they did. And that is a significant piece of political history that we’ve made here today,” said Sir Keir at his victory rally.

“So the message out of these elections, the last now the last stop before we go into that general election, is that the country wants change.

“I hope the prime minister is listening and gives the opportunity to the country to vote as a whole in a general election as soon as possible.”

This win gave them the boost that was missing when they won the Blackpool South by-election on a massive 26-point swing, but then failed to pick up the hundreds of council seats they were chasing.

This win, on just 1,508 votes or 0.25 per cent of the vote, was a body blow for a Conservative party that believed they could just about cling on. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, is now the last Tory standing.

For Labour, then a moment to bookmark.

Just as Boris Johnson’s Hartlepool by-election win in 2021 was a low point for Sir Keir – he told me this week that he considered resigning over the loss because he thought it showed he was the barrier to Labour’s recovery – this too will feel devastating not just for Andy Street but for the PM too.

Labour has beaten him in a street fight. He’s bloodied with Sir Keir now emboldened.

“This was the one result we really needed,” said one senior Labour figure. “It’s been our top focus for the past week and symbolically a very important win.”

And Labour needed the boost, because, as Professor Michael Thrasher pointed out in his Sky News’ national vote share projection calculated from the local election results, Sir Keir was not picking up the sort of vote share that Tony Blair was winning in the run-up to the 1997 Labour landslide.

His latest calculation of a 35% vote share for Labour and 26% for the Tories, put Sir Keir winning a general election but short of a majority.

What the West Midlands mayoral win did for Sir Keir was to give him a clear narrative that he is coming for the Tories and will do what he needs to take them down.

It raises inevitable questions about what is next for Rishi Sunak. The prime minister had nowhere to go today, not one win to celebrate. The worst performance in council elections in 40 years, was already pretty much as bad as it gets before the loss of Andy Street. The former Conservative mayor was magnanimous towards the prime minister, saying the loss was his alone.

But colleagues will not be so generous. One former cabinet minister said this loss was “devastating”. “We’re done and there’s no appetite to move against him,” said the senior MP. Many Tories tell me they are now resigned to defeat and believe Mr Sunak and his team needed to own it, rather than the rest of the party.

The coming days might be bumpy, the mood will be stony. But Tories tell me not much will actually change for them.

For Sir Keir, he now needs to sell not the changed Labour Party, but his vision for changing the country. The West Mids mayor’s win was dazzling, but it could have so easily gone the other way. And as Mr Sunak fights to survive, Labour still has to fight hard to win.