Representative Patrick McHenry, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Representative Bill Huizenga, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, have joined in sending a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler criticizing him for a failure to provide information on disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. The letter has been sent in advance of an SEC oversight hearing by the Committee, which is scheduled to take place at 10 AM on Tuesday, April 18th.
The SEC has filed charges against Bankman-Fried for his participation in the failure of FTX. Bankman-Fried is also being criminally prosecuted.
On February 10, 2023, McHenry and Huizenga sent a letter to Gensler requesting documents related to the SEC’s charges filed against Bankman-Fried. According to the document, the SEC has “actively impeded” the request for information, and the SEC has yet to provide any of the documents. The letter indicates a dealing of April 17, 2023 at 5PM has been set for requested documents; otherwise, the Committee may use a “compulsory process.”
In the letter, the lawmakers state that compulsory measures could be taken to obtain the requested documents should the agency fail to fulfill their request. This follows a previous attempt to obtain information from the SEC, which Chair Gensler has so far failed to turn over.
The letter by Representatives McHenry and Huizenga is available here.
