FTX bankruptcy fees near $20 million for 51 days of work

FTX's apical bankruptcy, legal, and fiscal advisors person billed the institution much than $19.6 cardinal successful fees for enactment done successful 2022, according to Tuesday bankruptcy tribunal filings. More than $10 cardinal of that was for enactment done successful Nov. 2022, arsenic Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire entered bankruptcy extortion successful Delaware.

The firms volition initially lone beryllium paid a small implicit $15.5 million, oregon 80% of the worth of their work, nether a court-ordered interim compensation plan.

The instrumentality firms that billed FTX are Sullivan & Cromwell, Landis Rath & Cobb, and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Professional advisor Alvarez & Marsal and fiscal advisor AlixPartners besides billed the company.

Some of the enactment that the firms billed for progressive meetings with different companies that besides were billing FTX for their time, oregon progressive corresponding with erstwhile and existent executives, including Caroline Ellison, the erstwhile CEO of Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research.

Landis Rath & Cobb and Sullivan & Cromwell, FTX's superior ineligible firms, billed the institution a combined $10.7 cardinal for implicit 8,400 hours of work. Landis Rath & Cobb billed $1.16 cardinal for enactment done betwixt Nov. 11 and Nov. 30.

Sullivan & Cromwell, a people for some lawmakers and Bankman-Fried implicit their pre-petition enactment with FTX, sought implicit $9.5 cardinal successful compensation for implicit 6,500 billable hours, successful the play betwixt Nov. 12 and Nov. 30. Over a 3rd of those billable hours, totaling implicit $4.8 million, were for the enactment of partners, who typically complaint the highest hourly rate.

Sullivan & Cromwell assigned implicit 2 twelve partners to FTX's case, according to the filings. Jim Bromley, a spouse astatine Sullivan & Cromwell and a pb lawyer connected the case, billed implicit 178 hours for the weeks betwixt Nov. 12 and Nov. 30.

The ineligible filings connection a glimpse into the ferocious enactment done by advisors to untangle FTX's complex web of accounts and slipshod accounting standards. Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers spent implicit 1,900 hours successful November unsocial connected enactment related to analyzing and recovering FTX's planetary plus base, according to the filings.

Alvarez & Marsal, an advisory firm, billed $1.9 cardinal for implicit 2,300 hours of enactment connected "business operations," gathering with lawyers, FTX executives, analyzing FTX's holdings utilizing blockchain explorers, and reviewing "cybersecurity scenarios." Those operations included aggregate hours successful November corresponding with and calling Ellison, 5.3 hours successful a azygous time imaging iPad files and different physics devices, and a first-day proceeding league telephone that lasted 2.5 hours.

Quinn Emanuel, which billed implicit $1.5 cardinal for enactment done betwixt November and December, assigned implicit a twelve lawyers to the case, 9 of whom were partners. One of those partners, Sascha Rand, billed implicit $13,000 for a azygous day's enactment successful November, corresponding and reviewing first-day issues. Another Quinn lawyer filed for implicit $17,000 connected a "non-working travel" time travel opening Nov. 21, returning connected Nov. 22.

AlixPartners, a fiscal consulting firm, billed $1.1 cardinal for enactment done implicit the people of a small much than a month, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 31.

FTX's advisors aren't entitled to their afloat fees yet. Under an interim compensation order, nonrecreational advisors are paid 80% of their filed fees, provided that nary objection is filed. Full compensation for ineligible and advisor fees volition not hap until a last interest exertion is filed, whenever FTX's bankruptcy saga concludes.

That doesn't mean that advisors won't get their due, however. A 2019 Federal Reserve study said nonrecreational and consulting fees successful Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy were implicit $2.56 billion.

Lawyers for Sullivan & Cromwell did $40,000 worthy of enactment conscionable to look successful FTX's first bankruptcy hearing connected Nov. 22, based connected tribunal filings of hours billed and hourly rates.