Months after the conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX-case still occupy the courts. Now the parents are defending themselves against a lawsuit.

The parents of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, have filed a motion to avert a lawsuit against them by the bankrupt crypto exchange. This was reported by the crypto portal Cointelegraph with reference to A petition filed by Bankman and Fried in U.S. bankruptcy court.

Personal enrichment

FTX had already filed the lawsuit against the parents of Sam Bankman-Fried last September. It stated that Bankman and Fried, both of whom are professors at Stanford's elite university, used their son's company to enrich themselves personally. Bankman and Fried vehemently reject this accusation. Since the indictment, they have stressed that the fact that as parents they maintained close contact with their son is not enough reason to press charges.

"Mere allegations are not enough to establish a plausible claim for legal protection. The complaint must contain sufficient facts to allow the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the alleged misconduct," it states with respect to Joseph Bankman. A similar argument is made for Barbara Fried: There is no evidence that she had knowledge of her son's misconduct. Meanwhile, FTX trustees have been doing their best for months to get their hands on the money and property Sam Bankman-Fried's parents received from their son over the years.

Lawyers talk about a gift

Millions are at stake: On the one hand, SBF gave his parents a $16.4 million villa in the Bahamas as a vacation home; on the other, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried received a $10 million transfer from their son when FTX was thriving. Bankman and Fried's lawyers claim that the $10 million was a gift and that the mansion was also used as a workplace by FTX employees. All allegations that the two had intentionally enriched themselves through their son's crimes are therefore null and void, they say. It remains to be seen whether the competent court will agree.