SAN DIEGO: Hartley LLP and its co-counsel filed a case against Silvergate Bank for aiding and abetting the fraud committed by  Samuel Bankman-Fried and his companies, FTX and Alameda Research, LLC. Alameda was a company that made speculative investments in cryptocurrency for its own accounts. Most banks immediately began questioning the propriety of Alameda’s wire transfers, which were, in SBF’s words, “sketchy as s***” transfers involving “fake internet money.” But in 2018, Silvergate opened accounts for Alameda, accepted Alameda’s deposits and processed Alameda’s transfers. Silvergate embraced cryptocurrency with its attendant risks, and quickly developed a close relationship with SBF’s Alameda and FTX. Silvergate’s website featured SBF’s personal endorsement: “Life as a crypto firm can be divided up into before Silvergate and after Silvergate—it’s hard to overstate how much it revolutionized banking for blockchain companies.” With FTX and Alameda’s colossal collapse, account holders at Silvergate lost tens of millions due to Silvergate’s own role in the fraud.

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Hartley LLP represents commercial plaintiffs on a contingency basis and victims of anticompetitive conduct like price fixing agreements, unfair competition, tying agreements and monopolization. Its attorneys have worked to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for its clients. For more information about our practice, visit https://hartleyllp.com/results/.