Customers outside the US who use FTX want private information taken out of bankruptcy filings.
As part of the crypto exchange’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, a group of non-U.S. customers want their names and private information removed from court documents.
“The Ad Hoc Committee of Non-US Customers of FTX.com” (Ad Hoc Committee) said in a joint filing on December 28 that putting customers’ names and private information out in the public could lead to identity theft, targeted attacks, and “other injury.” It said:
“Forcing the Debtors to tell the public the names and other identifying information about the FTX.com customers would cause irreparable harm and hurt the FTX.com customers even more, since their assets were stolen.”
The fact that there are 15 people in the group in their own right or as representatives suggests that there are a lot more than that. The Ad Hoc Committee says it speaks for people or groups that have locked up assets worth about $1.9 billion in FTX.com.
A joinder is a type of court filing in which two or more cases are combined into one or when a new party adds itself to an existing filing.
In this case, the Ad Hoc Committee is supporting the “Motion of Debtors for Entry of Interim and Final Orders,” which, among other things, wants to keep confidential customer information secret.
The filing says, “The Ad Hoc Committee submits this Joinder in support of the Redaction Motion’s request to redact the names and all other identifying information of the FTX.com customers from any paper filed or made public in these proceedings, including the Creditor Matrix, the Consolidated Top 50 Creditors List, and Schedules and Statements.”
The U.S. Trustee did file an objection to the original motion on Dec. 12, saying that keeping information secret could hurt the openness of FTX’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy process and that the public has a “general right of access to judicial records.”
Publications like The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), The New York Times, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times have even asked that the information be made public, saying that this is what usually happens in these kinds of bankruptcy cases.
Andrew Scurria of the WSJ wrote on Dec. 29 that in exchange for the protections of Chapter 11, bankruptcy courts usually require troubled businesses and their creditors to be open about their businesses.
In October, when Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, private information about thousands of customers was made public through court documents, which upset the crypto community.
