US Second Circuit upholds Sam Bankman-Fried's 25-year fraud conviction and $11 billion forfeiture order

The US Second Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, affirming his 25-year sentence and an $11 billion forfeiture order. The appellate court rejected Bankman-Fried's arguments, which had included the claim that he could have made FTX customers whole. The Second Circuit's ruling closes off one of the principal routes by which Bankman-Fried might have sought to reduce his sentence or revisit the factual findings of his trial. The $11 billion forfeiture order is among the largest in a financial fraud case and reflects the scale of customer losses suffered when FTX collapsed in November 2022. Separately, mass arbitration activity is reported to be rising more broadly in the US. The head of dispute resolution provider JAMS has noted a major upswing in mass arbitrations — where large groups of claimants bring coordinated claims through an arbitration process, typically in response to mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer or employment contracts — as plaintiff-side firms develop new tactical responses to arbitration clauses required by companies. No UK proceedings arising from the FTX collapse were referenced in the sources.