Caroline Ellison hires former top SEC crypto regulator
Terrill Dicki Dec 11, 2022 20:28
A former top crypto regulator will defend former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison in a federal inquiry. WilmerHale Securities and Financial Services chair Stephanie Avakian. She enhanced cryptocurrency monitoring as SEC Enforcement Division director. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried caused Terra ecosystem collapse.
According to a story published on the 10th of December by Bloomberg, Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, would be represented in an ongoing federal investigation by a former senior crypto regulator who worked for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Stephanie Avakian and a team of lawyers from WilmerHale will be Ellison's legal representatives in this matter.
At this time, Avakain is serving as the law firm's department chair for the Securities and Financial Services division.
She worked as a director in the Enforcement Division of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where she was responsible for expanding cryptocurrency supervision and launching lawsuits against Robinhood and Ripple Lab.
The website of the legal firm reportedly states that "Ms. Avakian was responsible for supervising the roughly 1,400 professionals and staff members who worked in the Division.
During the four years that she led the Division as Chief, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought more than 3,000 cases of enforcement action, obtained judgments and orders for more than $17 billion in fines and disgorgement, and returned approximately $3.6 billion to investors who had been harmed.
Additionally, she was in charge of guiding the Enforcement Division through the process of addressing unique concerns that are at the forefront of the markets today, such as initial coin offerings, digital assets, and cybersecurity."
According to a report by Cointelegraph, there are a number of investigations now being conducted, and at least seven class action lawsuits have been filed against FTX Group and its executives.
An investigation into the defunct cryptocurrency exchange and its subsidiaries is being conducted by attorneys from the United States attorney's office for the district of Manhattan in New York and with the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation of the state of California.
Prosecutors from the federal government have also started looking into whether the former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was responsible for the collapse of the Terra ecosystem.
Prosecutors are investigating whether Bankman-empire Fried's intentionally caused a flood of "sell" orders on Terra's algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD Classic as part of a larger investigation into FTX's own collapse. This investigation is being conducted as part of a broader investigation into FTX's own collapse (USTC).
The bulk of the sell orders for USTC securities were placed by Alameda Research, as stated in an article published by The New York Times.
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