Representative Pete Sessions claimed in the Saturday Report on December 17 that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was negligent in regards to how FTX Group and its subsidiaries complied with financial and corporate control requirements.
The Texas congressman said, “We need to look at what the Securities and Exchange Commission was doing. The SEC was asleep at the wheel for these billions of dollars that we now learn about a year later.”
On December 13, the SEC filed charges against Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the former CEO of FTX, alleging that Bankman-Fried had violated the Securities Act of 1933’s anti-fraud provisions and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934’s anti-fraud provisions. The SEC asks for an injunction to stop Bankman-Fried from taking part in the issuance, purchase, offer, or sale of any securities other than for his own account in the complaint.
According to SEC Chair Gary Gensler, Bankman-Fried told investors that it was one of the safest structures in cryptocurrency while erecting a house of cards on a false foundation. The charges were filed a day after his detention by Bahamian authorities at the US government’s request.
A year ago, Bankman-Fried went before a congressional committee meeting, when he was questioned on the necessity of regulatory oversight of cryptocurrencies, as stated by Representative Sessions. According to Sessions, it’s merely an issue of transparency, Bankman-Fried retorted.
The Congressman also noted that Bankman-Fried had full access to members of Congress and the U.S. Senate.
Session’s comments follow those of Senator Tom Emmer, who criticized Gensler for his flawed “crypto information-gathering efforts,” calling on him to appear before Congress to explain “regulatory failures.”
Emmer also outlined that Gensler hasn’t appeared before the House Committee on Financial Services since October 2021, leaving crypto media to fill the void for the SEC’s failures in investigating.
