“ANY ATTEMPT TO BLAME THE BAHAMAS OVER FTX COLLAPSE IS AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF REALITY”
NASSAU, Bahamas — As he defended The Bahamas’ response in the wake of the collapse of crypto giant FTX, Attorney General Ryan Pinder asserted last night that any attempt to lay the blame of the company’s fall at the feet of The Bahamas is an “oversimplification of reality”, The Nassau Guardian reported on Monday, November 28, 2022 in an article written by Assistant Editor Travis Cartwright-Carroll.
In a televised national address on FTX’s failure, Pinder said The Bahamas is a country of laws and that those who believe its reluctance to communicate the details of an investigation into FTX means nothing is happening are “deeply misguided”.
“…As our investigations continue, I must emphasize that ill-informed speculation is not helpful: neither to the customers of FTX, nor their creditors, nor their investors or the general public,” Pinder said.
“Any attempt to lay the entirety of this debacle at the feet of The Bahamas, because FTX is headquartered here would be a gross oversimplification of reality.
“The dozens and dozens of companies involved, registered in numerous jurisdictions across the world, the scope of related parties, including some of the world’s most sophisticated investors, demonstrate the cross-border, multi-jurisdictional nature of this event.
“And it is deeply misguided to conclude that reluctance to communicate the details of an active investigation means that nothing is happening; in fact, the government’s discretion stems from how seriously we take our commitment to the rule of law and the independence of the securities regulator.
“We have been shocked at the ignorance of those who assert that FTX came to The Bahamas because they did not want to submit to regulatory scrutiny; in fact, the world is full of countries in which there is no legislative or regulatory authority over crypto, but The Bahamas is not one of them.
“We have been able to assert our leadership in this new field because in the digital assets arena, what matters is not the size of your land mass, or the size of your GDP, but the ingenuity and rigor of your people and jurisdiction. When a respected risk and market integrity firm ranked the world’s digital assets regulatory regimes earlier this year, our country was first, and for good reason.
“The digital asset sector is a high-profile, embryonic sector of the Bahamian financial services sector, an area where The Bahamas has demonstrated global leadership for decades.
“As a world-leading destination for tourism, we have been audacious before in asserting that it’s better in The Bahamas. We will not hesitate to do so again.”
FTX Digital Markets was incorporated in The Bahamas in July 2021 and the company moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to The Bahamas in September 2021, weeks after the Davis administration came to power. See complete article in The Nassau Guardian at https://thenassauguardian.com/ag-defends-ftx-handling/
