SEC Seeks Long Officer/Director Bans for Ex‑FTX and Ex‑Alameda Executives

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed proposed final consent judgments against former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX engineers Gary Wang and Nishad Singh as part of its FTX fraud enforcement. The SEC alleges that from May 2019 to November 2022 FTX and Sam Bankman‑Fried raised over $1.8 billion while misrepresenting risk controls and treating Alameda Research as a regular customer but exempting it from protections. Complaints say Wang and Singh coded systems that diverted customer funds to Alameda and Ellison misused those funds; hundreds of millions were allegedly sent for Alameda investments and personal loans. Ellison, Wang and Singh consented to final judgments without admitting liability: permanent anti‑fraud injunctions and bans from serving as public‑company officers or directors — Ellison for 10 years, Wang and Singh for 8 years — subject to court approval. The action is part of broader SEC enforcement and asset‑recovery efforts tied to the criminal case against Sam Bankman‑Fried. Market reaction was muted: FTX’s native token FTT rose about 6% intraday to roughly $0.51 after the filings but remains over 99% below its all‑time high. For traders: the rulings reinforce regulatory risks around centralized exchanges and governance failures, are unlikely to materially change FTT’s fundamentals, and may modestly affect sentiment toward legacy FTX‑linked assets.