A data security incident has been reported involving the personal information of bankruptcy claimants in the matters of BlockFi, FTX and Genesis. #crypto #bankruptcy

The following announcement appears under Case Background in the FTX Trading case administration website:

We were recently informed of a data security incident that has impacted certain information related to this bankruptcy case.  Additional information regarding this matter can be found at:

https://ftxquestions.kroll.com/

The ftxquestions link then contains the following information (as of August 28):

On August 25, 2023, Kroll announced a security incident involving the personal information of bankruptcy claimants in three matters involving cryptocurrency companies: https://www.kroll.com/en/about-us/news/security-incident

In connection with this incident, Kroll provided email notice to the FTX claimants whose personal information may have been involved in the incident.

In re: FTX Trading Ltd., et al., Case No. 22-11068
United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware

Kroll Restructuring Administration (“Kroll”), the claims agent in the bankruptcy, has learned that it experienced a cybersecurity incident that compromised personal data of certain claimants. Kroll promptly contained and remediated the incident, reported it to law enforcement and is investigating this matter. Kroll has advised the court and the FTX debtors of the incident. This website provides important information that can help protect you against potential misuse of this information. We encourage you to read this content carefully.

What happened?

On or about Saturday, August 19, 2023, an unauthorized third party gained control of a mobile phone number belonging to an employee of Kroll. As a result, the unauthorized party accessed files in Kroll’s cloud-based systems, including files that contained your name, address, email address, and the balance in your FTX account. When Kroll became aware of the incident, it acted quickly to secure the impacted Kroll account and launched an investigation. There is no evidence that the attacker accessed any other Kroll accounts or systems. Moreover, Kroll did not maintain passwords to FTX accounts. This attack on Kroll did not affect any FTX systems or FTX digital assets.

The attacker might use this information in a further scam, for example, by sending phishing emails to trick you into providing sensitive personal information or access to your personal accounts, including but not limited to, cryptocurrency accounts, wallets or other digital assets, wherever they may be held.

While no action is necessary as to your FTX account as a result of this incident, you can help maintain the security of your accounts and digital assets by remaining vigilant and taking certain steps, including the following:

• Never share your passwords, seed phrases, private keys, and other secret information with untrusted individuals, applications, websites or devices.

• Always verify information that you receive from any other website about the FTX bankruptcy case or your claim by visiting the website of the Claims Agent, Kroll Restructuring Administration LLC: https://restructuring.ra.kroll.com/FTX/ or contacting Kroll Restructuring Administration at FTXquestions@kroll.com.

The Court presiding over the FTX bankruptcy case (the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware), Kroll, and FTX will never ask or require you to do any of the following in connection with the processing of bankruptcy claims or the distribution of FTX assets:

• Link a cryptocurrency wallet to a website or application

• Provide your seed phrase or private keys

• Download any software or use a particular wallet application

• Provide your password over email, text message, or over the phone

• Provide personal identifying information, such as your birthday or social security number, over email, social media or in any manner other than as described in a Court-approved process posted to Kroll Restructuring Administration’s case website or the Court’s docket

Please know that any distribution of FTX assets will only be at the time and in the manner established by the Court. Information about the Court’s orders can be found at the website of the Claims Agent, Kroll Restructuring Administration LLC: https://restructuring.ra.kroll.com/FTX/.

If you have any questions, receive suspicious communications, or wish to verify the authenticity of communications that are purported to be from individuals associated with the FTX bankruptcy case, please contact: FTXquestions@kroll.com.

CLICK HERE FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT IDENTITY THEFT PROTECTION

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In re FTX Trading - hearing on US estate/Bahamas estate issues now streaming on YouTube

Here is the link to the live stream of the hearing: https://www.deb.uscourts.gov/FTXLiveStream

I have posted the official court audio for prior FTX hearings to FTX/Alameda U.S. bankruptcy court hearing audio recordings, #crypto - YouTube.  

In re BlockFi Inc. April 19, 2023 bankruptcy court hearing audio recording, chapter 11 case number 22-19361

Here is a link to the publicly available hearing audio posted to the bankruptcy court docket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPVIlRX4U6w

In re Virgin Orbit Holdings, Inc. April 5, 2023 bankruptcy court hearing audio recording

Here is a link to the publicly available hearing audio posted to the bankruptcy court docket: https://youtu.be/Vl9w_1rXFyE

Bed Bath & Beyond email of Sunday morning to its customers with news the company has filed chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings...

 ---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Bed Bath & Beyond <BedBath&Beyond@email.bedbathandbeyond.com>
Date: Sun, Apr 23, 2023 at 7:49 AM
Subject: Important Update from Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.

To Our Valued Customers:

Earlier today, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. filed for voluntary Chapter 11 protection.

We appreciate that our customers have trusted us through the most important milestones in their lives – from going to college, to getting married, to settling into a new home, to having a baby – and we wanted to reach out to you to explain what this means.

Our stores are open and serving customers. However, we have initiated a process to wind down operations.
What This Means for Our Customers

We wanted to make you aware that several of our programs and policies may be changing soon. As of today:

• We expect to process returns and exchanges in accordance with our usual policies until May 24, 2023, for items purchased prior to April 23, 2023

• We expect Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, and Loyalty Certificates will be accepted through May 8, 2023

• We will no longer accept coupons or Welcome Rewards+ discounts beginning April 26, 2023

• We expect all in-stock orders placed online both prior and after our bankruptcy filing to be fulfilled at this time
Registry
Your registry data is safe. You can still view your registry at this time. We expect to partner with an alternative platform where you will be able to transfer your data and complete your registry. We will provide details in the coming days.

We Are Here for You
For Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and additional information, please visit
https://restructuring.ra.kroll.com/bbby. Stakeholders with questions can email
BBBYInfo@ra.kroll.com or call at (833) 570-5355 or (646) 440-4806 if calling from outside the U.S. or Canada.

Thank you for your loyalty and support.

Bed Bath & Beyond | buybuy BABY

Thomas Cook Group plc Collapses

Thomas Cook Group plc Collapses

.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) returned 150,000 passengers to the United Kingdom following the collapse of the world’s oldest travel firm1 Thomas Cook Group plc in September of 2019.2 This was part of an initiative called “Operation Matterhorn” through which the CAA undertook what is considered to be the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history.3 The CAA reported that, during the first 13 days of Operation Matterhorn, 94% of holidaymakers arrived at home on the day of their original departure.4 Remaining passengers needed to make separate arrangements to return home. The British Broadcasting Channel (BBC) reported that people who were covered by the Air Travel Organiser’s License scheme (Atol) would have the cost of their travel packages refunded and that the majority of Thomas Cook holidays were packages that are Atol protected.5 As the turmoil was unfolding, British Airways announced they were among airlines supporting the CAA in its repatriation efforts: “We will help as much as we can in the coming days.”6 Virgin Atlantic, founded by Sir Richard Branson, reportedly helped as well.7 Passengers returning to other parts of the world were not as fortunate.8

Not all branches of Thomas Cook are out of business

The operations of many Thomas Cook branded companies were not affected by the collapse and their customers’ travel plans were not disrupted. For example, Hindu Business Line reported that Thomas Cook (India) Group was a different corporate entity as of August 2012 when it was acquired by a Canada based multinational investment company.9 And there were heart warming stories out of local papers about travel companies intervening by buying former Thomas Cook branches and offering all employees their positions back. Word from the cathedral city of Chichester in West Sussex in England was “[t]he manager of the recently reopened former Thomas Cook shop in Chichester has spoken of her relief when she found out her job had been saved.”10

Thomas Cook in the 19th and 20th centuries

British Newspaper The Daily Telegraph, aka The Telegraph, founded in 1855 by a contemporary of Thomas Cook, published a history that focused on the company’s history prior to acquisition by C&N Touristic, AG, a German travel group in 2001.11 The Telegraph interviewed Paul Smith, the company’s archivist, who had access to rare items such as a Thomas Cook brochure for the marketing of flights, printed around 1919 when Thomas Cook marketed pleasure flights.12

Long before the company was arranging flights, it was organizing travel by train and by boat. According to the Telegraph, Thomas Cook was born in the Derbyshire market town of Melbourne in 1808 and was a man of religious conviction. In 1841 he began organizing trips for his fellow supporters of the temperance movement, which promoted abstaining from drinking alcohol. The first trip Thomas Cook organized was by train, from Leicester to Loughborough. The Telegraph goes on to lament: “The brand has survived two world wars, the regimes of six British monarchs, the rise and fall of the soviet bloc, and numerous changes to how we live…. A reproduction of a Thomas Cook ‘circular note’ – an in-house version of the traveller’s cheque – recalls a move into currency transactions in 1874. A ‘Nile Season: 1896-97’ brochure salutes the rise of river cruising….”13 According to The Telegraph, the company was incorporated as Thos Cook & Son Ltd. in the twentieth century and then was nationalized after the Second World War started, becoming part of state-owned British Railways.14 It went back to being a private company after the war, reportedly becoming owned by Midland Bank in the 1970s before being sold in the 1990s to a German bank and charter airline.15

Thomas Cook in the new millennium

The debt piled onto Thomas Cook’s innovative enterprise by its management in the new millennium was of a magnitude sufficient to cause Thomas Cook to roll over in his grave. The Guardian reported on September 21, 2019, days before the company collapsed and went into compulsory liquidation proceedings:

Just three weeks ago, the tour operator looked to have secured a £900m rescue package – half provided by Chinese tourism business Fosum, the rest by a mixture of banks and hedge funds. The debt-for-equity swap would wipe out £1.7b of loans, allowing the company to make its interest payments during the barren winter, when less cash comes in because bookings are low.

Then, in what one person familiar with the talks described as a bolt from the blue, came a shock demand from its banks, state-owned RBS [the Royal Bank of Scotland] among them. Thomas Cook must find an extra £200m, they said, or the restructuring could not go ahead. The company sometimes credited with inventing modern tourism must, by this weekend, somehow cobble the money together if it is to survive.16

Unfortunately negotiations did not work out and, on September 23, 2019, Thomas Cook Group plc ceased trading with immediate effect and entered compulsory liquidation proceedings in the United Kingdom.17

Conclusion

In addition to stranding people who were traveling when the company went into compulsory liquidation, the collapse of Thomas Cook has reportedly led to 9,000 employees in the United Kingdom being put out of work.18 The public outcry precipitated an investigation of the audit of the company in 2018 by the Financial Reporting Council19 and Members of Parliament questioning management.20

1 British travel firm Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 600,000 people abroad, Reuters, September 22, 2019.

2 Thomas Cook: Final repatriation flights touch down, BBC News, October 7, 2019.

3 Id.

4 Id.

5 Id.

6 Francesca Street, Air crews ‘stranded’ after Thomas Cook collapse, CNN Travel, September 25, 2019.

7 Id.

8 Stacey Leasca, Tour Operator Thomas Cook Ceases Operations, Leaving 600,000 People Stranded, Travel and Leisure, September 23, 2019.

9 Why Thomas Cook (India) is not affected by Thomas Cook’s collapse, Hindu Business Line, September 23, 2019.

10 Sam Morton, Thomas Cook; Delight for staff after jobs at former Chichester branch are saved, Chichester Observer, October 29, 2019.

11 Chris Leadbeater, The history of Thomas Cook, from tours for teetotalers to boozy packages to Spain, The Telegraph, September 23, 2019.

12 Id. Cover art from the brochures is included in the article, adding a great visual component to the history it presents.

13 Id.

14 Id.

15 Id.

16 Bob Davies, Holiday nightmare: big debts and bad luck push Thomas Cook to the brink, The Guardian, September 21, 2019.

17 BBC News, Thomas Cook collapses as last-ditch rescue talks fail, September 23, 2019.

18 Bill Wilson, BBC News, Thomas Cook’s auditor EY to be investigated, October 1, 2019.

19 Id.

20 BBC News, Thomas Cook: Former bosses deny responsibility for collapse, October 23, 2019.

Bankruptcy Regime For Nations Urged

Per www.globalinsolvency.com:

Tue., January 8, 2013

 

Argentina’s messy legal battle with hedge funds over its 2001 sovereign default has heightened calls to resurrect plans for a bankruptcy regime for countries, under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Times reported. Many senior lawyers, fund managers and former policy makers say recent court rulings against Argentina highlight the weaknesses of the current approach to government debt workouts, and argue that it is time to revisit the “sovereign debt restructuring mechanism” proposed by the IMF in 2002. The SDRM, envisaged as a kind of voluntary Chapter 11 for countries, never took off after US opposition. The initiative has received renewed interest since the eurozone debt crisis highlighted the weaknesses of the current ad hoc, contractual approach to sovereign debt restructurings.