Australia’s financial markets regulator has suspended FTX Australia’s financial license following the appointment of a voluntary administrator to help nearly 30,000 Australians and 132 Australian companies get their funds back from FTX.
Before its suspension, FTX Australia’s AFS license permitted it to create a market for derivatives and foreign exchange contracts to Australian-based retail and wholesale clients. Australian traders who signed up to trade digital assets were routed through FTX Australia.
FTX Australia has however, been permitted to provide limited financial services that strictly relate to the termination of existing derivative contracts with its clients until Dec. 19.
The suspension comes as John Mouawad, Scott Langdon, and Rahul Goyal of Sydney-based investment and advisory firm KordaMentha were appointed as voluntary administrators to provide restructuring services to FTX Australia and its subsidiary FTX Express.
The suspension of FTX Australia’s customer-facing operations comes nearly eight months after it was established on Mar. 20, the firm also set up a Sydney-based office for its five employees.
