FTX Loses $50K an Hour in Bankruptcy Fees
19 Dec, 2023 ● Crypto News
According to the most recent set of compensation filings, the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX spent about $53,000 per hour on bankruptcy attorneys and advisors during the three months that ended on October 31.
According to court documents dated December 5 through December 16, the bankruptcy attorneys have taken in at least $118.1 million between August 1 and October 31.
This works out to $1.3 million a day, or $53,300 an hour, over the course of 92 days.
The management consulting firm Alvarez and Marshall billed $35.8 million for their services over the course of three months, which was the largest bill.
Global legal firm Sullivan & Cromwell, which charged $31.8 million for its services, ranked second. The average hourly fee for the services provided by Sullivan & Cromwell was $1,230.
During that time, the global consulting firm AlixPartners invoiced $13.3 million for forensic investigation-related professional services.
During that same period, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan made $10.4 million in billings; however, over $26.8 million came from several other smaller advisory firms.
Based on information provided by an anonymous FTX creditor on Dec. 17 on X (previously Twitter), it appears that about $350 million in legal fees have been fully paid since the start of the FTX bankruptcy case.
In the meantime, "significant areas of concern" were found in the billings submitted by the larger advisory firms, such as Sullivan & Cromwell, Alvarez & Marshall, and others, between May 1 and June 31, according to an earlier report filed on December 5 by Katherine Stadler, the court-appointed fee examiner.
“The Fee Examiner identified apparently top-heavy staffing, apparently excessive meeting attendance, fees related to non-working travel time, and various technical and procedural deficiencies with respect to some time entries (including vague and lumped entries),” stated the report in light of the the billings submitted by Alvarez & Marshall.
Sources:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ftx-bankruptcy-loses-53k-every-hour-lawyer-fees
