Are SG Agencies on FTX’s Creditor List Actually Creditors?

Four Singapore government agencies have been featured on a list of FTX creditors.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (Ipos) were listed among thousands in a verification of creditor matrix filed on 25 January 2023 by FTX's new management in a US bankruptcy court.

The four Singapore government agencies have not denied being creditors but The Straits Times reports that "based on checks... they are not creditors nor do they owe any monies to FTX."

Other Singaporean including DBS, Group ONE Holdings (parent company of ONE Championship), Nium, and StraitsX were also listed in the 116-page document. Around 50 Singaporean entities are featured on the list including law firms, office space providers, VCs, banks and media companies.

FTX lawyers told the news outlet to refer to a 26 January statement that said the list includes those who may appear in FTX’s books and records “for any number of reasons,” and that “inclusion of a name on the matrix does not necessarily indicate that the party is a creditor.”

US$3.1 billion Owed

Court filings show that FTX has over 1 million individual creditors; the top 50 creditors reportedly owe more than US$3.1 billion.

Various countries' financial regulators could appear on the list if FTX had operated in said countries, a lawyer told The Straits Times.

FTX's new CEO John Ray said there was a “complete absence of trustworthy financial information." The lack of accurate record keeping would thus explain the over-inclusive creditor matrix, which could include non-creditors.

“My hunch is that the big concern is that there is no way of telling from what information FTX is holding who is a creditor and who is not,” Professor Adrian Walters from the Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law said.

“The FTX management and lawyers are to some considerable extent flying blind, and so there is an element of them having to cover all their bases.”