Singapore’s state investment firm Temasek, along with 17 other banks, venture capitalists and accounting firms, is being sued for allegedly conspiring with cryptocurrency exchange FTX to defraud investors.
Venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and SoftBank Vision Fund were also named in the lawsuit.
The 83-page class action lawsuit was filed in Miami, Florida on Wednesday (Feb 22) by Connor O’Keefe, an FTX customer whose funds have been frozen in his FTX account since the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.
The Mississippi resident claimed the 18 defendants knew about the alleged fraud occurring at FTX, but “did not care” because they had “money to make in the scheme”.
He had filed the lawsuit “on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated”, seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the defendants’ “knowing and substantial assistance in furtherance” of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud.
According to the document, the due diligence checks that the defendants had conducted would have allowed them to acquire knowledge of FTX’s “omissions and untruthful conduct” and misappropriation of investor funds.
In November last year, Temasek said it would write down its US$275 million (S$376.8 million) investment in FTX, irrespective of the outcome of the cryptocurrency exchange’s bankruptcy protection filing.
In its statement on Nov 17, it added that there have been “misperceptions” about its investment in FTX as an investment into cryptocurrencies, and that it had “no direct exposure to cryptocurrencies”.
