Guide to Submit Claims In The FTX Liquidation

*Forwarded original title: How do I submit a FTX liquidation claim? Please keep this official guide

After a long wait, FTX Joint Official Liquidator (JOL) PwC has updated its liquidation claims process and announced the launch of the FTX Digital Markets (the primary regulatory and licensing entity for the FTX International platform) claims portal.

Based on the disclosed information, FTX will notify eligible customer and non-customer creditors to submit proof of claims and other information through the FTX Digital Markets claims portal, and only customers and non-customer creditors who submit electronic claims before the specific deadline of May 15, 2024, and whose information is acknowledged, are eligible to receive a distribution of liquidation claim funds in the Bahamas Process.

FTX Liquidation Claims Timeline

Before starting to explore how to apply for FTX liquidation claims, let us sort out the timeline of this event ——

• On 10 November 2022 the Securities Commission of the Bahamas presented a winding up petition against FTX Digital Markets Ltd. and suspended its license to operate as a digital asset business with the Commercial Division of The Supreme Court of the Bahamas. On the same day, the liquidation process of FTX Digital officially started.
• On November 14, 2022, Mr. Kevin Cambridge of PwC Bahamas and Peter Greaves of PwC Hong Kong were appointed as Provisional Liquidators by the Supreme Court of the Bahamas.
• On February 15, 2023, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the District Delaware recognized the main proceeding of provisional liquidation in The Bahamas.
• On November 10, 2023, after hearing evidence submitted by representatives of the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, the Joint Provisional Liquidators, and counsel representing FTX Trading Ltd., the Supreme Court of the Bahamas appointed the Joint Provisional Liquidators as Joint Official Liquidators (“JOL”) and the order was made to liquidate FTX in accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act 1992 (as amended) and the Companies (Winding Up Amendment) Act 2011 applicable to the liquidation of International Business Companies.
• On March 3, 2024, the FTX claims portal website was officially launched. Eligible customer and non-customer creditors must submit proof of claims application by May 15, 2024.

FTX Liquidation Claims Guide

As FTX Joint Official Liquidator, PwC has now officially enabled FTX Digital Markets Claims Portal, where qualified customers and non-customer creditors can log in to submit relevant information to make claims. This involves a total of 5 steps, as follows:

1. Account registration-Creation of claims portal account

In order to submit a claim you will first need to create an account on the FTX Digital Claim Portal. Once you have created your account you will be able to link your FTX accounts, view the account balances and submit a claim. (Note: If you are a customer in Australia, Europe, Turkey or Japan you may be dealt with under one of the separate processes. )

As required by FTX, creating an account requires providing contact information and details (including name, phone number and email address, date of birth and account opening, as shown above), as well as type of claimant (including individual customers, institutional customers and non-customer creditors, as shown below).

It should be noted here that individual customers refer to customers who make claims against “FTX.com” or “FTX International” in their own name; institutional customers refer to those who make claims against “FTX.com” or “FTX International” in the name of a company. Non-customer creditors are transaction creditors who provide goods or services to FTX Digital (a small number of employees may fall into this situation). The three types of registration information are different, as detailed in the following figure:

After successfully completing all the above information, click the “Next” button and you will see a pop-up window stating that an email has been sent with a “One-time Passcode” that needs to be entered on the next page (pictured below). If you do not receive the email, please check your spam folder or you can click Resend verification email.

2. Registration of creditor and customer account details

To submit a claim, you also need to provide additional detailed information to register yourself as a creditor, and link your FTX account with the newly created FTX Digital Claim Portal account. Only after the FTX account is linked to the FTX Digital Claim Portal account can a claim be submitted for the FTX account and the related account balance viewed. Afterwards, you can choose to accept the balance figure, or dispute the balance figure and provide further detailed information to confirm the claim fund amount.

After setting up an FTX Digital Claims Portal account, you can log in at any time with your username and password (as shown above), but at this time you need to receive another email containing a “one-time Passcode”. In fact, each time you log in to the claim website, you need to obtain a “one-time code” by email to ensure the security of the account.

After logging in, you can go to the “Registration of Creditor and Customer Account Details” section and enter the following details:

• Step 1: “Current Claimant Information” – Complete all required fields (name, date of birth, phone number, address, country or region of residence, occupation, nationality, ID number) \
  NOTE: Acceptable/recommended ID numbers are passport, national ID, and/or driver’s license numbers, depending on the jurisdiction.

• Step 2: Link your FTX account, enter the email address of your FTX account. At this point, the FTX account will be linked to a FTX Digital Claim Portal account. After entering the email address, a verification code will be sent to your linked email address to verify whether you have the permissions of these accounts.

After successfully linking your FTX account, you will be able to view the balance information for review.

3. Balance Acceptance – Accept or dispute balance listed

After completing the FTX account association, you will be directed to the balance page, which displays the portfolio information and balance data of the related accounts in detail, as shown below:

At this time, you can choose to Accept or Dispute the balance number in the lower right corner of the page, and enter the following page:

If you dispute the balance (i.e. Dispute Portfolio), you will need to provide further details to substantiate the claim amount -

• Section 1 (pictured below) - Customer/non-customer details, full name, primary residential address, primary contact phone number and email address (email address associated with the FTX account) must be entered.
• Section 2 - Amount of claim (USD or USD equivalent), details of the claim amount need to be entered.

• Section 3 - Basis for Claims. Please provide the reason(s) behind your claim amount. Please attach relevant supporting documents to substantiate your claim. Please ensure the file(s) you are uploading are in the file format of any image file (e.g. jpeg, png), PDF, Word or Excel (including CSV). We do not accept email uploads (e.g. .msg files). Please instead save and upload the email as a PDF file.

• Section 4 - Claims Acquired/Transferred. If FTX assets were purchased from another party, the appropriate information must be indicated.

• Section 5 - Security. If you hold any security in relation to your claim (i.e., mortgage, charge or other collateral).
  

Users who complete the above steps, or directly confirm acceptance of the claim amount, will be taken to the dashboard page, which will confirm the claim amount and ask for the option to submit the information. Once you enter your name, identity, contact information and signature, and select Submit, the claim information cannot be modified.

4. Identity verification

Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) and Know-Your-Customer (“KYC”) procedures undertaken by the JOLs help confirm that creditors have legal rights to their accounts and help prevent fraudulent activities.

As part of the KYC procedures customer and non-customer creditors will need to submit identity information and supporting documentation for review. These procedures help confirm creditor identity and accounts and enhance the security of the FTX Digital Claims process. Completion of the KYC procedures will not be the sole factor in determining whether a dividend can be paid and there may be external restrictions regarding distributions to certain jurisdictions.

Since this link is operated “backstage” by FTX and the official liquidator, the claimant does not need to take any action and will be notified via email once the identity verification is completed.

5. Asset transfer

Claims against FTX Digital will be undergoing a formal adjudication process after the above process is completed, and creditors will be notified of the adjudication results thereafter. Payment of the first interim dividend distribution is then expected to be paid in late 2024 or early 2025.

Safety reminder

When submitting relevant information, you must pay attention to the official website address information to prevent phishing and spam fraud. FTX creditors need to confirm the authenticity of the email information received and the legitimacy of the relevant emails. If necessary, you can go through the official website Email address for communication and confirmation of relevant information.

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [aicoin], Forward the Original Title‘How do I submit a FTX liquidation claim? Please keep this official guide’,All copyrights belong to the original author [PWC]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.