U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the founder of now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to pay a $40 million bribe to Chinese government officials, Reuters reported. The new bribery conspiracy charge adds the pressure on the 31-year-old former billionaire, who now faces a 13-count indictment over the November collapse of FTX.
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A cohort of TV Azteca SAB’s creditors filed a petition to force the Mexican broadcaster into involuntary bankruptcy in the U.S., the latest twist in drawn-out debt talks, Bloomberg News reported. Holders of about $63 million of unsecured Azteca bonds filed an involuntary chapter 11 petition against the company in New York, according to court papers on Monday. The move marks the second attempt by bondholders to get traction for their claims against Azteca after it defaulted on the $400 million of notes in 2021.
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday sued Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, accusing him and other defendants of illegally selling crypto securities and scheming to artificially inflate trading volume in crypto assets, Reuters reported. Beginning around August 2017, Sun and his companies Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Limited and Rainberry Inc engaged in a scheme to distribute billions of crypto assets known as Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT), the SEC said.
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Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX on Sunday sued the liquidators overseeing the wind-down of its Bahamian affiliate FTX Digital Markets, accusing them of wrongly claiming ownership of the exchange's assets, Reuters reported. FTX's U.S. based bankruptcy team, led by new CEO John Ray, said in its lawsuit that the liquidators were laying claim to FTX.com’s cryptocurrency, intellectual property, and customer relationships. FTX called FTX DM a "fraudulent enterprise", initially set up only to be a "local service company", which did not own the FTX.com exchange or any of the cryptocurrency seized.
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The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has shown the need to build a larger and more diverse financial system by bolstering the stock market and unlocking cash in pension schemes, Britain's finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Following the collapse of its parent company in the United States, Silicon Valley Bank's UK arm was sold to HSBC over the weekend to avoid disrupting its customers in Britain. SVB was heavily focused on lending to the technology sector. Fallout from the collapse continued to roil banking shares in Europe on Wednesday.
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Latin America’s largest airline is planning a return to US capital markets after cutting nearly $4 billion of debt during a years-long restructuring, Bloomberg News reported. Latam Airlines Group SA will seek to re-list its American depositary receipts on the New York Stock Exchange this year after they were suspended during the bankruptcy, Chief Financial Officer Ramiro Alfonsín said in a video interview. It also expects to return to international bond markets next year, he said.
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The Justice Department is investigating last year’s collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin, adding the risk of U.S. criminal charges to the pressure on its creator, South Korean crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Southern District of New York have questioned former team members of Mr. Kwon’s company, Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd., in recent weeks and sought to interview others, the people said.
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British banks are not yet seeing a "flight to quality" in deposits among customers nervous about the safe-keeping of their money following the collapse of U.S. lender Silicon Valley Bank last week, Lloyds chief executive Charlie Nunn said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. "What's happened with SVB is relatively idiosyncratic compared to the UK," Nunn told a Morgan Stanley event, referring to the demise of the specialist lender, which has triggered widespread banking turmoil and a rout in stocks globally.
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Swiss financial regulator FINMA on Monday said it was seeking to identify any potential contagion risks for the country's banks and insurers following the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Reuters reported. Shares in Swiss banks slumped along with others in the sector globally after moves by U.S. authorities to guarantee deposits of the two lenders failed to reassure investors.
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Silicon Valley Bank’s British subsidiary will be acquired by the banking giant HSBC, the Bank of England announced on Monday as it emphasized the stability of the nation’s banking system, the New York Times reported. “This action has been taken to stabilize SVBUK, ensuring the continuity of banking services, minimizing disruption to the U.K. technology sector and supporting confidence in the financial system,” the central bank said in a statement, referring to the American bank’s British subsidiary. “The wider U.K.
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