Biglaw

Sam Bankman-Fried Wastes No Time Bashing Biglaw Firm Sullivan & Cromwell In Latest Filing

SBF wants the Biglaw firm treated as part of the prosecution team.

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Sam Bankman-Fried (Photo by Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is still facing a heaping helping of legal woes from the events that led to the crypto exchange’s collapse. In his latest filing, he’s asked the federal judge presiding over his case to throw out the majority of charges against him. The kindest thing that can be said about that strategy is you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

As Lewis Brisbois’s Sean P. Shecter told Law360, “I think this is a lot of, ‘Ok we know there is going to be a lot of evidence, we’re weighing whether we can win at trial, let’s create a record to preserve our appellate rights even if it involves throwing spaghetti against the wall.'”

But the truly interesting tidbit in the filing is SBF’s request to have FTX’s current leadership and Sullivan & Cromwell —  the Biglaw firm advising FTX in bankruptcy who also represented the company on transactions and regulatory matters pre-collapse — designated as part of the “prosecution team.” He argues He argues FTX and S&C have offered so much cooperation that the government has “effectively deputized the company to aid the prosecution.”

The company has “already determined that Mr. Bankman-Fried is guilty and prematurely staked their reputations on it,” Bankman-Fried told the court.

“The FTX debtors have no incentive to look for or provide exculpatory material to the government, which is the only practical way the defense will ever receive it,” he said.

The filing went on to say the firm and FTX have become “public mouthpieces” for the prosecution, turning over “cherry-picked” documents that implicate Bankman-Fried. If the judge grants SBF’s request, both Sullivan & Cromwell and FTX will be obligated to turn over potentially exculpatory documents to Bankman-Fried, as if they were prosecutors themselves.

As reported by Yahoo!, while they haven’t offered comment about this specific filing, FTX and S&C have defended their cooperation:

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FTX and its Sullivan & Cromwell team have accused Bankman-Fried of presiding over a shocking lack of internal corporate controls and said their cooperation with the government was crucial to securing a quick indictment against Bankman-Fried and guilty pleas from other FTX executives.

The role of cooperators has been hotly debated by the criminal defense bar. As Mark Kasten of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney noted, “I think criminal defense attorneys are going to look at how the court rules on this motion.”

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.

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