Stanford University, where the parents of FTX and Alameda Research founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) worked, will return donations received from organizations totaling $5.5 million. Bloomberg reports.
Earlier, journalists from the agency pointed to the decisive role of the parents in the formation of SBF’s business. One of the sources at the time called Joseph Bankman the actual father-founder of the companies.
Both had distinguished careers long before the alleged fraud by Bankman-Fried, working for more than three decades at the university’s law school.
“We will return the funds in full,” the university spokesperson said.
The comment appeared against the background of a lawsuit by the current FTX team against the parents of SBF. The exchange intends to recover allegedly misappropriated funds and property worth “millions of dollars” to add to the overall pool of assets.
According to the statement, the defendants used their influence in the company for personal enrichment. The suit does not specify the total amount of claims, but it mentions real estate owned by the parents in the Bahamas worth $18 million, donations to Stanford University, and other payments and transfers of property.
“Stanford received donations from the FTX Foundation and exchange-affiliated companies mainly for pandemic prevention and research,” — according to a statement by a university spokesperson.
In July, lawyers demanded the return of $71 million from the exchange’s charitable units. Previously, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York agreed to return $550,000 donated by the exchange.
Earlier, the lawyers for Bankman-Fried’s parents rejected the claims.
In a March presentation, representatives of the exchange estimated the total shortfall to cover creditors’ claims at $8.7 billion, of which about $1.6 billion is in bitcoin. In June, the new management of FTX announced it had returned $7 billion in liquid assets.