FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried intends guilty “counsel recommendation” supplied by the corporate’s inner authorized workforce and Fenwick & West, a distinguished Silicon Valley regulation agency, in his case towards the U.S. authorities.
In an Aug. 23 letter to Decide Lewis Kaplan, Bankman-Fried’s legal professionals wrote that their shopper acquired authorized recommendation from Fenwick in making a few of his selections, together with utilizing auto-delete options and ephemeral messaging purposes like Sign. The legal professionals additionally identified that the regulation agency supplied authorized recommendation on different points, together with the loans given to FTX and Alameda executives and intercompany funds between FTX and Alameda.
In accordance with the legal professionals, Bankman-Fried was performing in “good religion” as Fenwick Legal professionals and in-house counsel for FTX, together with Dan Friedberg, Can Solar, Ryne Miller, and others, had been concerned in reviewing and approving selections associated to those issues and others. They added:
“Proof of the defendant’s reliance on counsel is related to the query of intent and isn’t restricted to conditions the place the protection can set up that the defendant formally sought out the recommendation of counsel, acquired authorized recommendation, and adopted the recommendation given.”
Fenwick is a number one U.S. regulation agency centered on the know-how and life sciences sectors. Among the regulation agency’s main shoppers embrace Coinbase, OpenSea, and Meta.
Fenwick was but to reply to CryptoSlate’s request for remark as of press time.
In the meantime, the letter additionally blamed the U.S. Division of Justice’s request for extra data, noting that the federal government had hindered the protection workforce from getting applicable paperwork that might have aided its case from Fenwick.
The legal professionals mentioned:
“It’s galling that the Authorities is requesting particular paperwork from the protection when the Authorities helped be certain that we couldn’t receive these very paperwork.”
On Aug. 22, Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy expenses, together with his legal professionals complaining in regards to the poor jail situations. His trial is ready to start in October.
The put up Sam Bankman-Fried plans to lean on ‘counsel advice’ defense in criminal trial appeared first on CryptoSlate.
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