Did Sam Bankman-Fried get a fair trial? Listen to a podcast discussing legal issues presented to the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. #crypto #FreeSBF #Drake

This podcast episode is made with Google tools based on two sources which are matters of public record, the arguments of counsel to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit presented last year and the ensuing court filings on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court, which include the petition filed on behalf of Sam Bankman-Fried by counsel seeking appellate review as well as amicus briefs, meaning briefs filed by friends of the court, ie organizations that wish to add information or context for the court such as discussion of due process rights.

The government has not yet responded and has the opportunity to do so as part of the process. The appeal is separate from the pardon request reportedly made on behalf of SBF.

I hope the parties decide to mediate and have before offered to work with them to try to facilitate a mutually agreeable resolution.

I think a #FreeSBF could do a lot of good and would be willing to work together. Whether he should be allowed to be a licensed trader I leave to people who can better assess but I believe he has much to offer the world professionally in any event and that he is remorseful and has been since 2022 when he was reportedly duped by CZ leading to a run on FTX. No one can stop a run like that. I can understand why he hoped a chapter 11 bankruptcy would help stabilize the business and gave control to John Ray. And I can understand why he quickly regretted it and there was nothing he could do. I relate to being powerful and becoming powerless, and being powerless and becoming powerful.

And I relate to trying to make peace no matter the power dynamic and asking yourself what you really value because power comes and goes, and some like the band U2 would tell you someone else is in control - God.

I am intrigued SBF gave an interview to the Economist about effective altruism in the form of a podcast. I posted it to LinkedIn but I don't have a subscription so can't access the content. I thought it might be helpful to synthesize the arguments to the federal appellate courts in podcast form based on the arguments of counsel to the Court of Appeals and briefing to the Supreme Court. This podcast is with automation and not biased one way or the other though I disclose here in the accompanying notes that I am sympathetic to SBF as a person caught up in a legal storm and to his family and loved ones and the many affected by what happened including of course the investors. I am also sympathetic to the government, and have served as a civil servant before. And like Sam's mom I have served as a law clerk to federal judges, and I have faith in the system.

Typically mediators are not sympathetic to parties they help reach agreement, but I think some sympathy and empathy can surely help parties figure out what to do together, with the alternative being third parties like courts deciding.

I'd love to help and I wanted to shout out Drake and his song and video for his song DUST, mentioning corporate America hit survivors and Sam Bankman-Fried in that context. Drake might be a crypto investor as so many people are invested. And we have no clue who the investors are in FTX and the shadow banking around FTX because there is so much sealing of information on the FTX docket. On the other hand to get paid out on FTX claims customers need to give a lot of information by KYC as is normal in U.S. chapter 11 cases and is the sort of disclosure issue that makes some liquidity issues better handled offshore via schemes of arrangement and other popular restructuring practices.

It would not have been possible for the lead bankruptcy counsel to lead an offshore case so they were for a chapter 11 process in the US they could lead, per some speculation in papers filed in the FTX bankruptcy. That makes some sense to me, or it seems plausible. I don't know if it's true.

What duties do the lawyers owe the individuals relative to the duties they owe themselves and their families to deal with stress they were under to cooperate with the government to deal with the fall out of FTX only the lawyers and people they confided in know and I think that is probably privileged and confidential. I feel for the lawyers being one myself. But imagine the outcome if SBF hadn't been blamed by people he trusted when he was part of a bigger picture where many people were to blame. Imagine Paul Weiss hadn't conflicted off and had explained what happened and the firm's role. That's not what the appeal is about but surely the Supreme Court Justices, lawyers themselves by training, consider many factors including whether they believe harsh punishment of one person does anything good or bad for the integrity of the financial markets and what message it sends to the rest of us who are working class to see working class people punished harshly while the generationally wealthy seem at times entirely above the law.