Bahamas Securities Commission neither “authorized” nor condones FTX enabling local withdrawals

In a press release on Nov. 12, the Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB) contradicted the statement published by FTX about resuming withdrawals in The Bahamas.

Securities Commission Addresses FTX Statement on Bahamian Withdrawals pic.twitter.com/OZKWwicSuN

— Securities Commission of The Bahamas (@SCBgov_bs) November 12, 2022

On Nov. 11, the former head of institutional sales at FTX, Zane Tackett, announced on Twitter that the exchange would allow withdrawals for Bahamanian clients. In the statement, Tackett said that the withdrawals were enabled in compliance with regulators.

1) Per our Bahamian HQ’s regulation and regulators, we have begun to facilitate withdrawals of Bahamian funds. As such, you may have seen some withdrawals processed by FTX recently as we complied with the regulators.

— Zane Tackett (@tackettzane) November 10, 2022

This led to a large number of FTX users trying to funnel funds through the help of Bahamians. Some even offered bribes to FTX employees to change their country to The Bahamas and help withdraw funds.

However, the SCB said that the regulator neither “directed, authorized, or suggested” FTX to prioritize local withdrawals.

In fact, the SCB press release stated:

“The Committee further notes that such transactions may be characterized as voidable preferences under the insolvency regime and consequently result in clawing back funds from Bahamian customers.”

In other words, the regulator made it clear that the withdrawals processed by FTX for Bahamian clients may be considered void and, therefore, reversed. The regulator firmly added that it does not “condone” the preferential treatment of any FTX customers.