Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), the world’s largest museum, has announced plans to return $550,000 to the Bahamian crypto exchange FTX. Before the collapse of FTX, the Met group received a substantial donations from the crypto exchange.
According to the court, FTX West Realm Shires donated $300,000 to Met last March. In May 2022, the Met team received another donation from FTX totaling $250,000. It was reported that West Realm Shires Services supported the FTX US team in delivering crypto services and products.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Returns $550000 to FTX
Afterward month before the crypto exchange filed for Chapter 11 of bankruptcy protection, the FTX team engaged in lengthy negotiations with Met. At the meeting, “good faith, arm’s length negotiations,” the Met team agreed to return the donations it received from the bankrupt crypto exchange.
The Met’s June 2 announcement came when the crypto exchange seeks to restore the funds from debtors. Led by the new chief executive John Ray III, the FTX team is clawing back political and business donations to compensate customers who suffered losses following the crypto exchange’s closure.
Per the court document, the crypto exchange donated around $93 million from March to November last year. The court report illustrated that FTX funded 180 US politicians in the previous election.
Earlier experts from the largest financial Twitter platform, Unusual Whale, stated that out of the 180 candidates, only 19 intend to return political donations. A few days ago, the Oregon representative Lori Chavez DeReme returned $1000 to FTX.
Will Politicians and Business Return Donations to FTX?
After scrutinizing the list of politicians supported by FTX, the market watch team noted that the democratic political party “Protect our Future PAC” (POF) received $27 million from FTX.
In a recent publication, the Berkeley-based non-profit firm Alignment Research Center announced plans to return the $1.25 million it received from FTX as a grant. The Alignment team argued that the funds belonged to FTX customers and creditors and should be returned.
A report from The Logic news site revealed that the University of Toronto has already returned $500000 to FTX. Before this, ProPublica had revealed its intentions to return $1.6 million to the crypto exchange.
Initially, the FTX team led by the founder Sam Bankman Fried and his brother Gabriel had agreed to support ProPublica to establish a $5 million Family Foundation. The FTX agreement stated that the crypto exchange would support ProPublica in the next three years to build a strong future for the community.
In December, the FTX team announced that most beneficiaries requested the troubled crypto exchange to guide them on ways to return the funds. The statement revealed that the FTX team would take legal action against debtors who would fail to repay the outstanding balances.
FTX Reveal Plans to Recover Funds
In the meantime, under the new management, the FTX team restored assets worth $6.2 billion. It was reported that FTX’s new CEO had been tasked to lead the recovery of the firm assets and develop ways to increase the shareholder’s value.
On the other hand, the outgoing FTX CEO would face criminal trial in October. Bankman-Fried was accused of engaging in financial crimes contravening Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.
Referring to the court filing, Bankman-Fried is accused of misuse of customer funds. He was accused of acquiring personal assets such as real estate, luxurious fashion brands and living lavishly using customer funds.
