Samuel Hapak’s firm represented 200 investors who lost a total of $35m after FTX filed for bankruptcy protection.
The CEO of trading software developer
Wincent and has just spoken to World Business Report on the BBC World
Service, and he says Sam Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence is “fair”.
“Twenty-five years is a lot
and I believe that this sounds like a reasonable signal to the industry that it
needs to step up the game,” he says.
Hapak adds that his clients were “upset, they were angry” after FTX imploded.
“They considered us
utterly incompetent – that we were able to trust such a fraudster, that we
didn’t see this coming sooner,” he says.
Wincent ended up losing half of its capital – about $70m – and 25% of its investors, Hapak tells the BBC.
“They decided they didn’t trust us anymore, they didn’t trust our
judgement anymore. They took away the remaining money that they had with us.”