The FTX-Alameda Bankruptcy Court has filed a suit against Jump Trading subsidiary Tai Mo Shan over a $264 million claim surrounding a loan transaction with Alameda Research. FTX’s attorneys argued that the claim was invalid because the loan never originated.
Tai Mo Shan is seeking approximately $264 million in damages from Alameda Research for failing to deliver 800 million Serum (SRM) tokens under a loan agreement dating back to August 2020. SRM is the native cryptocurrency of FTX-backed decentralized exchange Serum. Collapsed with FTX Exchange in 2022.
According to Court documentsJump Trading said it calculated the loss based on an options model that uses the market price at the time of SRM’s bankruptcy filing, the token’s implied volatility, the redemption option price, and other factors.
FTX’s attorneys asked the court to dismiss the claim on the grounds that Alameda Research never provided the loan.
“There is no question that Alameda failed to deliver the cryptocurrency contemplated in the loan agreement to the Master Loan Agreement. As such, the loan never originated,” FTX estate attorneys said in a court filing. “Nowhere in the Master Loan Agreement does it provide that Tai Mo Shan can compel Alameda to deliver the cryptocurrency or seek monetary damages for the loan that never originated.”
The estate also disputed Jump Trading’s $264 million damage estimate as “unfounded” and claimed Tai Mo Shan’s damage calculations were “completely unsubstantiated.” The attorneys argued that Jump’s use of an “options model” to calculate the damages was ambiguous and did not clearly explain how it arrived at the figure.
FTX also argued that Jump estimated its losses based on the price of SRM as of the date of the bankruptcy petition, but that the loan agreement did not require Tai Mo Shan to receive the tokens on that day, but rather in daily installments starting on August 1, 2023.
The filing also alleged that Tai Mo Shan may have been liable for fraudulent transfers, which FTX attorneys say should be another factor in dismissing the claims. “The Debtors allege that Tai Mo Shan may have received certain structured fraudulent transfers…including the loans at issue,” the filing said.
Meanwhile, FTX creditors have begun voting on a liquidation plan to compensate exchange customers, and must vote by August 16. The exchange plans to seek final approval for the liquidation plan in October of this year.
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