SEC Sues Silvergate Over ‘Misleading’ Statements Following FTX Collapse
Silvergate agreed to pay a $50 million civil penalty to settle the lawsuit, without agreeing to or denying the regulator’s accusations. The same can be said for Lane and Fraher, who paid $1 million and $250,000 in fines, respectively
Silvergate Bank, a crypto-friendly institution that shut down in March 2023, was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, with the agency alleging in a filing that the firm's leadership had misled the public and failed to properly monitor an estimated $1 trillion worth of transactions.
Among those were some $9 billion worth of transactions from once-prominent cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which collapsed in November 2022 following an array of fraudulent actions from co-founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and his allies.
In addition to suing Silvergate Capital Corporation, the SEC also included former CEO Alan Lane, COO Kathleen Fraher, and CFO Antonio Martino. Each is accused of securities violations.
Silvergate agreed to pay a $50 million civil penalty to settle the lawsuit, without agreeing to or denying the regulator’s accusations. The same can be said for Lane and Fraher, who paid $1 million and $250,000 in fines, respectively. But not Martino, who is accused of engaging “in a fraudulent scheme to mislead investors about the Bank’s dire financial condition.”
