Stanford University has announced it would return all the “gifts” it received from FTX. Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both professors at Stanford Law School, are facing a lawsuit filed by the FTX Group, which accuses them of misappropriating significant sums, including $5.5 million in donations to Stanford University, a report by Bloomberg said.
This development follows a lawsuit filed by FTX debtors on September 18 to reclaim millions of dollars that are alleged to have been misappropriated by Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried.
Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, vehemently denied the allegations, calling them as “completely false.”
A spokesperson for Stanford University stated, “We have been in discussions with attorneys for the FTX debtors to recover these gifts, and we will be returning the funds in their entirety. Stanford received gifts from the FTX Foundation and FTX-related companies primarily for pandemic-related prevention and research.”
Meanwhile, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, is preparing for an upcoming trial while in custody.
Attorneys representing the parents issued a joint statement to CoinDesk following FTX’s lawsuit, criticizing it as a “dangerous attempt to intimidate Joe and Barbara and undermine the jury process just days before their child’s trial begins.”