Voyager Digital deal under increased scrutiny as law firm subpoenas SBF and FTX, Alameda execs

New court documents filed on Feb. 6 by a law firm representing high-ranking executives from Voyager Digital seek to subpoena records from top Alameda and FTX executives in a legal tit-for-tat over Voyager’s bankruptcy in July 2022. 

Last year, FTX US attempted to bail out Voyager Digital, a separate centralized crypto exchange that went bankrupt in July 2022, with 3.5 million customers and an estimated $1.3 billion in assets at the time of its collapse. At the time, Bankman-Fried said the deal would provide liquidity for customers whose funds had been frozen due to Voyager’s credit crunch. 

That deal was complicated, however, when a Texas Security Board objected to FTX’s purchase in October 2022, accusing it of not being registered as a money transmitter or in any other capacity with the Texas Department of Banking.

The subpoena filed by Voyager on Tuesday is asking Sam Bankman-Fried and other top Alameda and FTX executives to provide documents and communications regarding the “Alameda Loan Agreement” between Alameda Ventures and Voyager. In addition, Voyager Digital has subpoenaed Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, Gary Wang, a co-founder of FTX, and Ramnik Arora, the former head of product and investor relations at FTX.

Lawyers representing Voyager in the claim are also demanding the production of all documents related to the fraud case being handled by the Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), both of which were recently postponed until after the criminal trial of FTX. 

 The legal request also mentions documents regarding the “Ellison Admissions” and the “Wang Admissions,” with Voyager’s lawyers also requesting access to documents related to the new CEO of FTX, John J. Ray III, and his statements. The filing also asks for any text messages, Slack messages, Telegram, and Signal messages exchanged between these individuals. Finally, communications relating to Bankman-Fried’s Twitter exchange with Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder of Binance, on July 24, 2022. 

After it had collapsed, FTX agreed it would pay Voyager $1.42 billion to take over its customers and made them whole. This was to be an 8% premium to the market value of the assets, paid directly into the accounts of investors, who would then be converted to FTX US customers. Ultimately, lawyers representing Voyager are now seeking any and all available “FTX-related entities’ trading logs related in any way to the VGX token” from Apr. – Nov. 11, 2022.  

The move comes a week after FTX filed a separate lawsuit against Voyager Digital seeking $445.8 million in loan repayments that were made prior to FTX’s bankruptcy in November of last year. 

Bankman Fried’s criminal trial is expected to begin in October 2023.