Bankman-Fried successor censures management of FTX before bankruptcy

John J. Ray III, the new boss of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, criticized the "unprecedented" management of ex-CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried that ultimately led to the once-mighty firm's demise, according to a court filing issued on Thursday. “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” said Ray, who has more than 40 years of legal and restructuring experience, including overseeing Enron's high-profile bankruptcy in 2001. “From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” he added. Ray mapped out a number of poor management practices that took place within Bankman-Fried's crypto empire, including FTX's failure to "keep appropriate books and records, or security controls, with respect to its digital assets." It also used unsecured group email accounts to access private keys, Ray noted, and used software to hide the misuse of customer funds. In addition, he cited FTX's failure to reconcile daily positions on the blockchain, and the "absence of independent governance as between Alameda (owned 90% by Mr. Bankman-Fried and 10% by Mr. Wang) and the Dotcom Silo (in which third parties had invested)," the filing said. On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee planned to hold a December hearing to investigate the multibillion-dollar collapse of FTX .