Following the voluntary administration of FTX’s Australia arm, on November 11, Australia’s Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) through its financial markets regulator suspended FTX Australia’s financial service (AFS) license.
According to the announcement which was made by ASIC, the suspension of FTX’s local company will last until May 15, 2023. Meanwhile, John Mouawad, Rahul Goyal, and Scott Langdon of KordaMentha were appointed as voluntary administrators of the local company as well as its subsidiary FTX Express Pty Ltd.
Together they operate as a non-regulated digital currency exchange to assist Australians and their companies recover lost funds from FTX. However, FTX’s Australia will be allowed to provide limited financial services in relation to the termination of existing derivatives with customers until December 19, 2022. The decision of the ASIC comes shortly after the collapse of the Sam Bankman-Fried empire.
In addition, ASIC advises customers of the local unit to always monitor the situation and get updates from the FTX group and administrators of FTX Australia to avoid further loss.
Likewise, the commission is also looking deep into the issue and is constantly speaking with the internal and external regulators. The Sydney-based firm has a right to apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal should it want to review the ASIC’s decision.
Australia’s Crypto Industry Beyond FTX
The collapse of FTX has caused a lot of harm to the crypto industry. Individuals, firms, groups as well as projects have been affected deeply as some are declaring bankruptcy already. Sadly its local unit in Australia was affected as about 30,000 investors and 132 organizations had their accounts locked out due to the crash.
There is no doubt that the sudden fall has given credence to the call for better regulation of the industry.
Earlier in August, the ASIC launched a four-year strategic corporate plan that rolls into 2026 to focus on cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). During this period its attention will be on fighting digitally enabled misconduct and crypto scams.
Also Australian liberal Senator, Andrew Bragg recently proposed a bill dubbed “Digital Assets (Market Regulation) Bill” to crack down on crypto exchanges, stablecoins, and digital yuan.
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