%1

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty Thursday to new federal charges tied to the collapse of the crypto exchange while his lawyer said he plans to challenge the new criminal counts, arguing they violate the terms of the former chief executive’s extradition, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Bankman-Fried appeared in a New York federal court to be arraigned on five charges that federal prosecutors unveiled in recent indictments, including one this week that alleged he conspired to bribe Chinese government officials in violation of a U.S. anticorruption law. His lawyer Mark Cohen entered the not guilty plea for Mr. Bankman-Fried during the proceeding. The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office charged Mr. Bankman-Fried in December with eight criminal counts connected to stealing billions of dollars from FTX customers while lying to investors of the company and lenders to his crypto investment firm Alameda Research. Prosecutors have since filed two additional indictments, bringing the total number of criminal counts to 13. The charges range from securities fraud to a bank fraud conspiracy to a campaign-finance violation.

A federal judge backed the Boy Scouts of America’s chapter 11 plan to settle sex-abuse lawsuits that sent the youth group to bankruptcy, bringing it closer to ending more than three years of court protection, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. U.S. District Judge Richard G. Andrews of the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., upheld the youth group’s settlement plan for more than 82,000 claims of childhood sexual abuse, rejecting appeals from some victims and insurance companies following its approval by a bankruptcy court last year. Yesterday’s ruling puts the Boy Scouts on the cusp of ending the largest-ever bankruptcy case resulting from allegations of childhood sexual abuse and bolsters the use of chapter 11 to resolve mass litigation. The chapter 11 plan is expected to resolve the Irving, Texas-based group’s liability for decades of childhood sexual abuse and settle claims against affiliated local councils and the civic and religious groups that sponsored scouting activities. Local councils, sponsoring groups, insurance companies and the Boy Scouts put together a $2.5 billion fund for victim compensation. The bankruptcy plan makes it possible for abuse claims to be administered and paid in “an equitable process,” according to the judge’s ruling. Judge Andrews said that nearly every creditor constituency supported the chapter 11 plan, a “commendable result for such a lengthy, contentious and emotionally charged proceeding.” The Boy Scouts would leave chapter 11 low on cash but retaining much of the property held by its local councils that makes up the majority of the organization’s wealth.

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the founder of now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to pay a $40 million bribe to Chinese government officials, Reuters reported. The new bribery conspiracy charge adds the pressure on the 31-year-old former billionaire, who now faces a 13-count indictment over the November collapse of FTX. Prosecutors had previously accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars in customer funds to plug losses at his Alameda Research hedge fund, and orchestrating an illegal campaign donation scheme to buy influence in Washington, D.C. Bankman-Fried is expected to be arraigned on Thursday in Manhattan federal court. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan will also consider modifications to his $250 million bail package. The indictment said Bankman-Fried ordered the $40 million cryptocurrency payment to a private wallet from Alameda's main trading account, to persuade Chinese authorities to unfreeze Alameda accounts with more than $1 billion of cryptocurrency.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily stopped bankrupt Voyager Digital from completing a proposed $1.3 billion sale to crypto exchange Binance.US, allowing the U.S. government more time to pursue appeals that challenge the legality of the deal, Reuters reported. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Office of the U.S. Trustee, the Department of Justice's (DOJ) bankruptcy watchdog, filed appeals in early March over a bankruptcy court's approval of the sale. They argued that the protections could rubber stamp crypto tokens that might be unregistered securities, as well as transactions that could be illegal under U.S. securities laws. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rearden in Manhattan ruled Monday that the sale should be put on hold, overruling Voyager's argument that a delay could cause Binance.US to back out of the deal entirely. Binance.US and Voyager did not immediately respond to requests for comment late on Monday.

Alex Jones started getting a share of Infowars advertising revenue weeks after the conspiracy website filed for chapter 11 and his salary was slashed, a now-ended arrangement only recently disclosed to the bankruptcy judge, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Christopher Lopez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, who is overseeing both Infowars’s chapter 11 and Mr. Jones’s personal bankruptcy, said Monday that he was “troubled” by the revenue sharing arrangement. Bankruptcy rules forbid company owners or other outside parties from taking funds out of a business without court approval or notice to creditors. Mr. Jones’s lawyer, Vickie Driver, said her client now knows the arrangement wasn’t permitted and is returning funds he received. Infowars restructuring chief Patrick Magill, appointed after the company filed for bankruptcy protection last year, recently discovered some advertising revenue was split between Mr. Jones and another unnamed company employee. The two recipients have since agreed to return the $243,742 they received to bankrupt parent company Free Speech Systems LLC, according to court documents.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas urged the Texas Supreme Court to overturn a court ruling that found the agency overstepped its authority by allowing power prices to soar during the state’s deadly 2021 winter storm, Reuters reported. The PUCT defended its actions during the storm in an appeal filed Thursday, writing that regulators made “split-second decisions” during a “life-or-death situation” that may not be popular, but were necessary to address a market failure. Attorneys for the regulator said the recent ruling against them has “thrown Texas’s electricity and associated markets into confusion.” Last week a state appeals court stunned the Texas power market by siding with power generator Vistra Corp. which claimed in a lawsuit that PUCT had exceeded its authority by pinning prices to $9,000-per-megawatt-hour for days during the February 2021 storm, resulting in billions of dollars in overcharges to consumers. The decision reversed a pair of orders by the commission.