- Stanford University has said it plans to return millions of dollars in gifts it received from FTX.
- According to a lawsuit, the university received $5.5 million from the now-bankrupt crypto firm.
Stanford University plans to return millions of dollars in donations it received from the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and cofounder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's parents, according to various reports including from Bloomberg News and CNN.
Bankman-Fried's parents — Allan Joseph Bankman, a Stanford law professor, and Barbara Fried, who was a Stanford law professor but has now retired — have been accused by FTX's lawyers of siphoning "millions of dollars out of the FTX Group for their own personal benefit and their chosen pet causes," according to a lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that Bankman donated over $5.5 million from FTX to Stanford University in an effort to "curry favor with and enrich his employer at the FTX Group's expense."
A spokesperson for Stanford University responded to the lawsuit in an emailed statement to Bloomberg: "Stanford received gifts from the FTX Foundation and FTX-related companies largely for pandemic-related prevention and research."
They added: "We have been in discussions with attorneys for the FTX debtors to recover these gifts and we will be returning the funds in their entirety."
Bankman and Fried were also accused of splashing out $18.9 million of FTX funds on a 30,000-square-foot luxury house in the Bahamas which was then furnished and maintained using a further $90,000 from FTX.
FTX Group and Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022, and Bankman-Fried resigned from his role as CEO on the same day. FTX's collapse exposed that Bankman-Fried was funneling billions of dollars of customer funds to prop up Alameda Research.
The disgraced founder has since pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, and is now being held at a Brooklyn jail notorious for its poor conditions.
Insider contacted Stanford University for comment but did not immediately hear back outside of regular working hours