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The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has opened a hornet’s nest of squabbles between foreign governments and its new U.S. chief executive, John J. Ray III, the Wall Street Journal reported. In Cyprus, the country’s securities regulator is complaining that Mr. Ray’s decision to place FTX in bankruptcy has stymied investigations and is preventing European customers from getting their money back. Officials in the Bahamas, where FTX moved its headquarters last year, are accusing Mr. Ray of making false statements and suggesting that his team is motivated by the prospects of earning hefty legal fees. In Turkey, authorities have seized the assets of FTX’s local subsidiary, an affront to Mr. Ray’s efforts to sweep FTX’s assets into the chapter 11 process in Delaware. Such disputes reflect a disconnect between the global aspirations of cryptocurrencies and the hard facts of the law, whose powers often don’t extend beyond a nation’s borders. Proponents say the cross-border nature of crypto makes sending money to someone on the other side of the world as easy as sending an email, and many crypto firms have offered their services to customers all over the world and have established headquarters in offshore jurisdictions. But laws meant to protect customers when things go wrong — and the bankruptcy regime in particular — are deeply tied up with national boundaries, and cross-border cooperation is never a guarantee.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted on Sunday that he would testify before the House Financial Services Committee after he finished "learning and reviewing" the events that led to the spectacular collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, Reuters reported. The U.S. House Financial Services Committee plans to hold a hearing in December to investigate the collapse of FTX and expects to hear from the companies and individuals involved, including founder and CEO Bankman-Fried. Committee Chair Maxine Waters last week invited Bankman-Fried to participate in the panel's hearing on Dec. 13. "Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain," the founder and former FTX CEO wrote in a reply to Waters. Bankman-Fried added that he was unsure if that would happen before Dec. 13. He rejected suggestions of fraud in a range of interviews last week after his company's collapse stunned investors and left creditors facing losses totaling billions of dollars.

LedgerX, one of the few solvent pieces of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crumbled FTX empire, is for sale and attracting interest from would-be buyers including crypto giants Blockchain.com and Gemini, Bloomberg News reported. The unit, which is registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a derivatives exchange, was a cornerstone of Bankman-Fried’s efforts in Washington. It’s also considered one of the most valuable assets associated with FTX after more than 100 other entities filed for bankruptcy. New FTX Chief Executive Officer John J. Ray III and restructuring advisers have been poring over the company’s books in search of cash, cryptocurrency and assets that could be sold to help repay creditors. It’s unclear how much LedgerX, which had about $303 million in cash as of a Nov. 17 filing, may fetch in a sale. In addition to Blockchain.com and Gemini, crypto exchange Bitpanda and event contracts trading platform Kalshi, which is also registered with the CFTC and uses LedgerX to clear trades, have expressed interest. There are about half a dozen other potential buyers and more could be added.

Crypto broker Genesis and its parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) owe customers of the Winklevoss twins' crypto exchange Gemini $900 million, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Crypto exchange Gemini is trying to recover the funds after Genesis was wrongfooted by last month’s failure of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto group. Venture capital company Digital Currency Group, which owns Genesis Trading and cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale, owes $575 million to Genesis' crypto lending arm, Digital Currency Chief Executive Barry Silbert told shareholders last month.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge ordered the founders of Singapore-based Three Arrows Capital Ltd. to turn over records related to the failed cryptocurrency hedge fund’s assets to its liquidators, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York granted the liquidators’ request to subpoena Three Arrows founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies as part of an effort to recover the hedge fund’s assets. Messrs. Zhu and Davies have offered only limited cooperation so far and have failed to provide a complete set of books and records, according to the liquidators’ court filings. The subpoenas authorized Friday seek documents related to Three Arrows’ cryptocurrency wallets, accounts and other assets, as well as records of the founders’ communications on email, Twitter, Discord, WhatsApp and Telegram. The liquidators also want to question Messrs. Zhu and Davies under oath, according to court documents. Although Judge Glenn authorized the subpoenas, he said he needed more evidence before deciding whether to grant the liquidators’ request to serve legal notice to Messrs. Zhu and Davies through their Twitter accounts. The liquidators have said they aren’t sure where the founders are currently residing after spending months trying to determine their exact locations. Three Arrows collapsed this summer following a rout in cryptocurrency prices. Its founders applied to have it liquidated in the British Virgin Islands, where Three Arrows is incorporated, after which court-appointed liquidators filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection in New York.

Not long after several Wall Street banks collapsed in 2008, a nine-page document circulated on an obscure mailing list, proposing a new kind of financial system that wouldn’t rely on any “trusted third party.” The paper was the basis for what became the cryptocurrency industry. Using sweeping, idealistic language, its adherents vowed to conduct business in a transparent and egalitarian way, rejecting the high-risk practices of a small number of powerful financial firms that caused the Great Recession, the New York Times reported. But last month, the actions of a single crypto firm — the $32 billion exchange FTX — plunged the emerging industry into its own version of a 2008-style crisis. Once considered a safe marketplace for people to trade virtual currencies, FTX filed for bankruptcy after the crypto equivalent of a bank run, forcing industry executives, investors and enthusiasts to grapple with how a technology meant to correct the shortcomings of traditional finance ended up replicating them. Executives who just a year ago were reveling amid crypto’s seemingly unstoppable growth are now scrambling to prove that they can learn from the mistakes and recapture the industry’s early ideals. Binance, the world’s largest exchange, announced last month that it would release more information about its finances and recruit independent auditors to review those disclosures. Coinbase, the biggest U.S. crypto exchange, proclaimed that it was committed to a “decentralized system where you don’t have to trust us.” Many crypto advocates are pushing for more drastic reforms, urging investors not to store their digital holdings with big companies and instead turn to more experimental platforms run solely by code. But for all the promises of change, FTX’s collapse shows how far crypto remains from fulfilling its original aims and gaining widespread acceptance. Consumer distrust has mounted this year amid major financial losses, criminal investigations and an increasingly skeptical regulatory climate in Washington. At a conference last month, Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s chief executive, said that FTX’s implosion would set the industry back by years.

Cineworld Group Plc said it intends to emerge from bankruptcy intact after senior lenders were said to be considering a sale process for its east European operations, Bloomberg News reported. The London-based company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas in September to cut a near $9 billion pile of debt and leases. “Cineworld remains committed to working with its key stakeholders to develop a Chapter 11 reorganization plan that seeks to maximize value for the benefit of moviegoers and all other stakeholders,” a spokesperson said on Sunday. “Cineworld has not initiated, and does not intend to initiate, an individual auction for any of its US, U.K. or RoW [rest of world] businesses on an individual basis.” The statement follows a Bloomberg News report on Friday that Cineworld’s creditors had held talks about breaking up the chain and selling its eastern European operations. According to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations, the company’s largest senior creditors were weighing the sale of Cinema City, Yes Planet and Rav-Chen, an Israeli operation. The eastern European operations include cinemas in Poland, Hungary and Romania.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Santa Rosa plans to file for bankruptcy, and the Diocese is citing the large number of sexual abuse lawsuits it is facing as the key reason why, according to a statement from Bishop Robert F. Vasa, KRON.com reported. After Assembly Bill 218 lifted the statute of limitations for a three-year period, allowing victims to bring civil claims against the Diocese for sexual assault cases that occurred as early as 1962, more claims have come to light. The Diocese is now facing more than 130 sexual assault claims dating back to its establishment in 1962 until the present day. Bishop Vasa says that attorneys representing the Diocese plan to file for chapter 11 protection sometime between Jan. 1 and Mar. 1, 2023. The Bishop noted that the Diocese in Santa Rosa is not the only one to choose this path. Thirty-one dioceses across the U.S. had filed bankruptcy by May of this year, according to the Penn State Law Library. Vasa's statement was also careful to note that parishes and Catholic schools within the area are “separate civil corporations or separate ecclesial entities and should not be parties to this filing.”

Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper and his real estate company are the focus of a criminal investigation to see if they misused any public money in their failed effort to build a practice facility for the NFL team in South Carolina, the Associated Press reported. The York County Sheriff’s Office said state agents and local prosecutors are aiding its investigation, and that the probe does not mean that any crime happened. “An investigation is simply an inquiry and should not create any inference that wrongdoing has been committed by any party,” York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson and Solicitor Kevin Brackett said in a joint statement Thursday night that named Tepper and GT Real Estate, the company created to oversee the construction project. Tepper’s company denied any criminal wrongdoing and suggested the timing of the announcement might be meant to disrupt a settlement the team reached with York County to repay more than $21 million, an amount roughly equivalent to the sales tax money the project received to improve roads around the facility.