© Courtesy of NBC NewsOn Thursday, FTX's new CEO issued a scathing indictment of the company's actions in a lawsuit as part of the company's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.
The new CEO and head of restructuring, John Ray, wrote that the company's financials, internal communications and even a clear understanding of who works there are strikingly lacking.
"Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete lack of reliable financial information," said Wray, who has more than 40 years of legal and restructuring experience, including overseeing Enron . They filed for bankruptcy," they wrote in the statement.
Bahamas-based FTX was one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world until earlier this month and was valued at $32 billion earlier this year before a financial meltdown in recent weeks. His lawyers said his creditors could exceed $1 million, and Reuters reported that two unnamed sources said he could have lost more than $1 billion in client funds. NBC News has not confirmed the reports.
Roy took over after former CEO Sam Bankman-Fred resigned on Friday.
Bankman-Fried and FTX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Throughout his filings, Roy emphasized that the financial records of the companies Bankman-Fried controlled were often missing or unreliable.
So far, he only has $740 million in cryptocurrency, "a portion of FTX Group's digital assets that they hope to get back."
In the press, his reviews of FTX-related companies such as Alameda Research and Clifton Bay Investments often contain the refrains: “As far as I know, none of these financial statements have been audited” and “Because these financial statements were not audited or compiled. Debtors within Bankman-Freed were. There are controls I'm not sure about and the information on them may be wrong.
In part, he says, that's because Bankman-Fried has embraced the no-track culture.
"One of the most common weaknesses in the FTX.com business in particular is the lack of consistent decision-making expertise," Ray said. "Mr Bankman-Fred frequently communicated through apps that were set to automatically delete after a short period of time and encouraged employees to do the same."
But he said it's also unclear who works for the company and in what capacity. At present, the borrowers have not been able to compile a complete list of those who worked for FTX Group on the date of application, nor the terms of their employment. Repeated attempts to trace some of the accused employees to ascertain their status have so far been unsuccessful.
In addition, Ray emphasizes that FTX has no control over cash. "The lack of accurate lists of bank accounts and account signatories, as well as insufficient attention to the creditworthiness of banking partners, can be attributed to procedural violations in managing cash," he wrote. He said he could not yet say how much money the company has.
One of FTX's audits clearly didn't impress Ray: "Praise Metis, a company I'm not familiar with whose website claims to be 'the first CPA to officially open its Metaverse HQ on the Metaverse platform.' Decentralized Land. "
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.