Dive Brief:

• The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has imposed five-year trading bans on former FTX technology chief Gary Wang and former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison for their roles in the multibillion-dollar collapse of FTX and related entities.
• Ellison, whose company was the sister firm of FTX, also received a 10-year registration ban. Wang received an eight-year registration ban.
• The bans resolve the CFTC’s cases against both Ellison and Wang, which began when initial consent orders were entered on Dec. 23, 2022.

Dive Insight:

The CFTC is not seeking restitution, disgorgement, or civil monetary penalties from Ellison and Wang, attributing that decision to the former executives’ cooperation in the investigation and related proceedings.

Both pleaded guilty to several fraud-related charges – seven and four, respectively – in connection to the 2022 collapse of FTX, previously one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

Both, too, testified against their former colleague Sam Bankman-Fried, who co-founded FTX and served as its CEO. Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven fraud and conspiracy charges in November 2023, and five months later was sentenced to 25 years in prison. 

“Today’s resolution further underscores the high value this Division places on robust cooperation,” CFTC Director of Enforcement David Miller said in a prepared statement Wednesday. “Ellison and Wang were senior executives who committed fraud at Alameda and FTX for which they were found liable. Their sanctions, however, reflect their material assistance in the Commission’s FTX-related investigations.”

Bankman-Fried wasn’t the only former FTX executive to get prison time. Ellison was sentenced to two years, although she was released in January after serving 14 months, according to The Guardian. Former FTX Bahamas co-CEO Ryan Salame was sentenced to 7½ years in 2024 for one charge each of violating campaign finance laws and operating an illegal money-transmitting business.

The clock on Wang and Ellison’s bans started from the date of their initial consent orders. Both will be eligible to trade again after Dec. 23, 2027. 

They remain jointly liable for $11 billion in forfeiture in the criminal cases against them.