Connecticut attorneys weigh in on Alex Jones bankruptcy

Jones has been ordered to pay about $1.5 billion to the families of Sandy Hook victims.

HARTFORD, Conn. — Alex Jones, the controversial host of Infowars, filed for bankruptcy protection Friday.

He claims he’s out of money and owes creditors millions, but he’s chauffeured around by private bodyguards in big new expensive vehicles, still selling his supplements, asking his fans to donate to his legal defense fund and encouraging them to give him cryptocurrency.

“All those people who are giving him money, they are working for the plaintiffs. They’re not working for him,” said Jim Bergenn, an Attorney for Shipman & Goodwin. Prior to personal bankruptcy filing, his company, Free Speech Systems, also filed for bankruptcy in April. “For the rest of his life he can never accumulate wealth,” said Bergenn.

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In total, Jones has been ordered to pay about $1.5-billion to Sandy Hook families after being found liable for defamation for claiming the school massacre was a hoax and the victim’s families were actors. “All they want is some billion-dollar number. This is ridiculous. I don’t have two million dollars,” said Jones of his Infowars show.

And

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December 5, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Crypto meltdown a boon for bankruptcy lawyers

Dec 2 (Reuters) – Turmoil in the cryptocurrency industry has rattled major exchanges and sent the value of digital assets tumbling, but at least one group stands to gain: bankruptcy lawyers.

High-profile bankruptcies involving crypto exchange FTX, hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and crypto lenders BlockFi, Celsius Network and Voyager Digital Ltd are generating new opportunities – and big fees – for law firms that counsel troubled companies.

Large law firms can rake in more than $100 million in legal fees during a long-running bankruptcy, experts said.

“You’ve got to pay the gravedigger,” said Adam Levitin, a law professor at Georgetown University who specializes in bankruptcy law. “These are complicated cases with a bunch of novel issues, and it shouldn’t be surprising that they are going to require a lot of attorney involvement.”

The value of bitcoin has dropped 65% so far this year, dragging down other crypto assets and leaving investors reeling. The spectacular implosion of FTX last month sent fresh shock waves through the cryptocurrency industry.

One U.S. law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, is representing BlockFi in its bankruptcy case filed on Monday and is also lead counsel for Celsius Network and Voyager Digital, which both filed

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December 4, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Bankruptcy court told FTX and Alameda they owe BlockFi $1B, but it’s complicated

Bankruptcy court told FTX and Alameda they owe BlockFi B, but it’s complicated

A lawyer for BlockFi told the first-day hearing of its bankruptcy proceedings that the crypto lender has $355 million stuck on FTX and that the collapsed exchange’s sister company Alameda Research has defaulted on a $680 million loan.

BlockFi filed 15 motions on Nov. 28 that were approved by the court in the first day hearing on Nov. 29, including the redaction of personal details of its 50 largest creditors and the appointment of Kroll Restructuring Administration as its claims and noticing agent — the same firm chosen by FTX for its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.

In a message emailed to worried clients, BlockFi noted that the approved motions allow it to continue “core operations” during the restructuring process and also to continue to pay its employees and independent contractors. BlockFi estimates that its wages bill is around $5.8 million per month and that it owed around $1.5 million in wages when it filed the motion on Nov. 28.

The message to clients said that BlockFi’s “singular focus” throughout the proceedings is “maximizing value for all clients and other stakeholders.”

According to a Nov. 29 CNBC report, BlockFi’s attorney, Joshua Sussberg, also added in the hearing that BlockFi plans

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December 1, 2022 by ATTORNEY

BlockFi lawyer tells court priority is to ‘maximize client recoveries’

BlockFi lawyer tells court priority is to ‘maximize client recoveries’

In this photo illustration, the BlockFi logo seen displayed on a smartphone.

Rafael Henrique | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

BlockFi plans to reopen withdrawals as part of an effort to “maximize client recoveries,” the crypto lender’s lawyers said at a court hearing Tuesday, a day after the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

BlockFi’s lawyers at that hearing expressed optimism that the firm is in good position to restructure and salvage the business through the bankruptcy process.

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“We want to make sure we get people back as much of their value as quick as we can,” said Josh Sussberg, a partner at BlockFi’s legal firm Kirkland & Ellis.

BlockFi’s collapse was precipitated by exposure to Three Arrows Capital — which filed for bankruptcy protection in July — and to Alameda Research, the FTX trading arm that borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from BlockFi. FTX had arranged a rescue plan for BlockFi, but that fell apart when FTX faced its own liquidity crisis earlier this month and rapidly sank into bankruptcy.

BlockFi loaned $671 million

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November 30, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Lawyers Detail the ‘Abrupt and Difficult’ Collapse of FTX in First Bankruptcy Hearing

“You have witnessed probably one of the most abrupt and difficult collapses in the history of corporate America,” an attorney for FTX said during the company’s first bankruptcy hearing in Delaware on Tuesday.

James Bromley of Sullivan and Cromwell, representing FTX, detailed the company’s rise and collapse in a brief presentation during the hearing, explaining how the company fell apart within the course of two weeks after bankman-frieds-crypto-empire-blur-on-his-trading-titan-alamedas-balance-sheet/” data-ylk=”slk:a CoinDesk report” class=”link “a CoinDesk report showed that Alameda Research, a subsidiary of the overall FTX group, held an unexpectedly large amount of FTT tokens, issued by FTX itself.

There are over 100 different debtors tied to the FTX group that filed for bankruptcy, another attorney said.

Bromley called the case an “unprecedented matter,” tacitly acknowledging the chaos of FTX’s bankruptcy, which saw a hack the night it filed for bankruptcy and several days before typical first-day filings were available.

The new team at FTX, including new CEO John Ray III, has “assembled a team of investigators,” which includes former enforcement officials with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and former prosecutors, Bromley said. FTX has also retained crypto analytics firm Chainalysis to help it investigate

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November 26, 2022 by ATTORNEY
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