The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) secured final consent judgments against former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and ex-FTX executives Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, imposing officer-and-director bars of ten years for Ellison and eight years for both Wang and Singh. Additionally, all three will face five-year conduct-based injunctions under SEC orders, barring them from serving as corporate officers or directors and restricting involvement in the management of public companies.
The underlying SEC complaints detailed the misuse of customer assets at FTX and Alameda Research from 2019 through 2022. According to the orders, Wang and Singh designed and implemented the software code allowing for the diversion of FTX customer funds to Alameda Research, while Ellison, as CEO of Alameda, allegedly authorized and used misappropriated funds for trading activities. The SEC’s enforcement action underscores the agency’s commitment to hold individuals accountable for breaches of fiduciary duties and misuse of investor assets in the digital asset sector.
These consent judgments follow criminal prosecutions that resulted in significant sentences for key figures in the FTX collapse. Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year sentence, currently pending appeal, while Ellison testified against Bankman-Fried as part of a plea agreement that reduced her sentence to two years. Wang and Singh also cooperated with prosecutors, receiving time served. The SEC’s civil measures complement criminal penalties, aiming to protect investors by preventing sanctioned individuals from holding positions of authority in public companies for the next decade.
Market observers note that these actions could deter misconduct in the broader cryptocurrency industry and signal increased collaboration between civil and criminal regulators. The SEC enforcement is part of a broader crackdown on unregistered securities offerings and operational failures in crypto exchanges, following recent orders against other platforms and digital asset issuers. The judgments emphasize that executives in the digital asset space bear the same legal obligations as those in traditional financial services.
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