FTX Customers Move Toward $66M Settlement As Fenwick Denies Fraud Role

FTX customers are moving toward roughly $66.17 million in new proposed settlements tied to the exchange’s collapse, adding another recovery track to the legal fallout from Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud.

Fenwick & West, FTX’s former outside law firm, will pay $54 million to resolve customer claims over its advisory work for the crypto exchange. Auditor Prager Metis agreed to pay $11.75 million under a separate settlement, while former Miami Heat player and FTX promoter Udonis Haslem agreed to pay $420,000. The agreements still require court approval before they become final.

The Fenwick settlement is the largest piece of the new group. Customers had accused the Silicon Valley law firm of going beyond ordinary legal work and helping create strategies that allegedly made FTX’s fraud harder to detect. Fenwick denies wrongdoing, says it was not aware of fraud at FTX, and maintains that its work for the exchange was legitimate legal representation.

The agreement does not decide whether Fenwick is liable. It resolves one set of customer claims in the Miami multidistrict litigation while avoiding a longer fight over discovery, trial risk and legal costs. For FTX customers, the proposed payment adds to a wider effort to recover losses from advisers, promoters, insiders and service providers connected to the exchange before its November 2022 bankruptcy.

Auditor Scrutiny Adds To The Professional-Services Fallout

Prager Metis remains a central name in the professional-services side of the FTX collapse because it served as an auditor for FTX before the exchange imploded. The firm had already agreed in 2024 to pay $1.95 million to resolve SEC charges tied to alleged audit failures involving FTX and separate auditor-independence violations. The SEC matter was resolved without Prager admitting or denying the findings.

That history gives the new $11.75 million customer settlement a wider compliance backdrop. FTX was not only a story about an exchange founder and internal software privileges. It also became a test of how much accountability can reach outside firms that gave the company legal, accounting, promotional or reputational support while customers believed the platform was safe.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison after federal prosecutors said he channeled billions of dollars in customer deposits from FTX to Alameda Research and used the money for investments, political contributions and real estate. The professional-services settlements are separate civil matters, but they sit inside the same recovery map created by the exchange’s collapse.

The latest agreements also extend the broader accountability cycle that has already reached former FTX and Alameda insiders. Civil judgments against key FTX and Alameda executives closed part of the regulatory case against senior figures who cooperated with prosecutors, while customer litigation continues to press claims against firms and public figures that allegedly helped FTX gain legitimacy.

Fenwick Still Faces A Separate $525M Lawsuit

Fenwick’s legal exposure does not end with the Miami settlement. A separate group of 20 former FTX customers has filed a $525 million lawsuit in Washington, D.C., naming the firm and six individual defendants. That case is not covered by the $54 million agreement.

The D.C. plaintiffs allege that Fenwick helped give FTX a false appearance of legitimacy and assisted structures that concealed customer-fund misuse. The claims include allegations around North Dimension, the Delaware entity that became part of the FTX fund-flow story, and internal communication controls that prosecutors and civil plaintiffs have scrutinized since the exchange failed.

Fenwick has denied wrongdoing in FTX-related litigation, and the new D.C. lawsuit remains an allegation-stage case. Its size still keeps pressure on the firm because the Miami settlement narrows one legal front while leaving a much larger damages claim active.