Cryptocurrency- FTX's lawyers are looking at a huge payday as they sort out finances at the collapsed crypto exchange, per Bloomberg.
- Sullivan & Cromwell has 150 lawyers on the case, who are charging rates ranging from $810 to over $2000 an hour.
FTX's lawyers are making up to $2000 an hour as they untangle the failed crypto exchange's chaotic finances, according to a report from Bloomberg Law.
After imploding in late 2022, FTX has been advised through bankruptcy proceedings by law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. According to court filings seen by Bloomberg, the firm has 150 lawyers working on the case, who are charging rates ranging from $810 to more than $2,000 an hour.
The firm's partners are charging the highest rates, the report said. Meanwhile, associates are charging anywhere from $810-$1475 per hour.
According to FTX's new chief John Ray III, Sullivan & Cromwell and other advisors of FTX have been working "nonstop" to sort out the crypto exchange's finances since it declared bankruptcy in November.
It could take months to locate all of FTX's assets, Ray warned, as the failed exchange had virtually no record-keeping, and used Quickbooks, a small-scale accounting software, to manage its multibillion dollar business.
Ray, meanwhile, is making $1,300 an hour as he oversees the firm's restructuring.
Sullivan & Cromwell has been criticized by US senators for advising FTX through bankruptcy proceedings, as the law firm has been involved with the crypto exchange even before it declared Chapter 11. FTX's former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried sometimes worked out of Sullivan & Cromwell's office, he said in a blog post earlier this month, and the crypto exchange once paid the law firm $20.5 million, according to a motion filed by an FTX customer.
But John Dorsey, the federal judge overseeing the case, later struck down complaints from senators as "inappropriate," adding that Sullivan & Cromwell's relationship with FTX would have no impact on his ruling.