Singapore government faces parliament grilling over FTX fallout

Singapore’s government faces increased scrutiny over the fallout from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto empire.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Deputy Prime Minster Lawrence Wong face a raft of parliamentary questions this week over the losses incurred by retail investors and the due diligence undertaken by state-owned investor Temasek Holdings Pte, which wrote down its entire $275 million investment in FTX.

The FTX exchange collapsed into bankruptcy on Nov 11 and there are questions about whether the platform misappropriated customer funds for use by sister trading house Alameda Research. Investors such as Sequoia Capital and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan also wrote off their stakes in FTX.

Ho Ching, former chief executive of Temasek, in a weekend Facebook post said “a loss in what may turn out to be a badly managed company without adult supervision is egg on our face.” She defended Temasek’s wider strategy, saying “some of Temasek’s best investments were made by being contrarian.”

An explainer page on Temasek’s website has been updated to say multiple rounds of due diligence were undertaken into FTX and that Temasek “enquired about the relationship, preferential treatment, and separation between Alameda and FTX, and were given appropriate confirmations that were contractually binding.”