Bitcoin miner Bitdeer is reportedly in discussions with private credit firms to secure $100 million in funding to expand its mining capacity. It is believed that the cryptocurrency miner has engaged a financial adviser to assist with the negotiations. Negotiations Between Bitdeer and Lenders Continue The cryptocurrency mining firm Bitdeer Technologies Group is reportedly seeking […]
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Fisker Inc. shares fell 37% in extended trading Thursday after the EV maker said it was brokering a deal with an unnamed “large” carmaker as it seeks to remain in business, adding that there would be “substantial doubt” about its ability to do just so without a capital injection.
The deal could include an investment in Fisker
FSR,
a joint development of one or more electric-vehicle platforms and North American manufacturing, Fisker said.
Fisker has been dubbed the “Apple of autos,” having inked deals with manufacturers to produce its EVs and choosing to focus on the design side of the business.
The company also said that its current resources are insufficient to meet its needs over the next 12 months, and that it will need to seek additional equity or debt financing.
If there’s no financing or if financing terms are “less desirable” than expected, the company “may be forced to decrease its planned level of investment in product development, scale back its operations including further headcount reductions, and reduce production of the Fisker Ocean, which could have an adverse impact on the company’s business and financial prospects,” the EV maker said.
“As a result, the company expects to conclude there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern when its annual financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2023, are filed with the SEC,” it warned.
Fisker said it would cut about 15% of its workforce, and that the reductions are mostly related to the change in its sales strategy from a direct-to-consumer model to a dealer-partner model. It was not immediately clear how many employees Fisker currently has, and the company did not return a request for information.
The company became a public through a merger with a blank-check company in July 2020.
It had an earlier life as privately held Fisker Automotive, which went bankrupt in 2013 after six years in business. The company’s assets were acquired by a Chinese auto-parts maker that also owned the company supplying batteries to Fisker, A123 Systems.
A123 Systems went bankrupt as well, hastening the demise of the old Fisker. The founder of Fisker Automotive, Danish designer Henrik Fisker, had resigned from the company’s amid board infighting just before the bankruptcy, but he retained some brand rights and went on to found Fisker Inc.
Last year was “challenging” for Fisker, including delays with suppliers and other issues that prevented the EV maker from delivering its Ocean SUVs “as quickly as we had expected,” Henrik Fisker said in the company’s statement.
“We also encountered unexpected headwinds in our efforts to establish a direct-to-consumer sales model in both North America and Europe at the same time,” plus “unanticipated challenges” such as rising interest rates and a tight labor market, he said.
Besides the layoffs, Fisker is also streamlining operations, including reducing its physical footprint and overall expenses.
Fisker reported fourth-quarter sales of $200 million, well bellow FactSet consensus for sales of $327.7 million for the quarter.
The EV maker lost $463.6 million, or $1.23 a share, in the quarter, compared with a loss of 34 cents a share in the fourth quarter of 2023. The analysts surveyed by FactSet expected a GAAP loss of 23 cents a share.
Fisker shares have lost 90% in the past 12 months, contrasting with gains of around 28% for the S&P 500 index
SPX.
The total addressable market for new and used car sales in the U.S. is estimated to be somewhere between $2.5 trillion and $3 trillion, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association.
And e-commerce behemoth Amazon is attempting to do what insiders say no one has been able to do yet: bring a seamless online shopping experience to a complex and highly regulated industry.
Last month, the company officially began its pilot program to allow a small number of Hyundai dealers to sell vehicles through the Amazon platform to employees only. The pilot is like others Amazon has undertaken before in the travel, grocery and health-care sectors.
Automobiles are one of the products that are most requested among Amazon’s 150 million or so Prime customers, said Jeff Dyke, president of Sonic Automotive, one of the largest publicly traded dealership groups in the country.
About 25% to 30% of car buyers want to do some or all of the car-buying process online, according to Chris Sutton, who is vice president for automotive retail at J.D. Power. When you get to the small but growing segment of electric vehicle buyers, that number jumps to 40%.
A tiny share of carmakers, primarily EV companies like Tesla and Rivian, bypass dealerships entirely and sell new vehicles through their websites. Companies like Carvana have brought used car sales totally online. But online buying still makes up a small portion of overall sales.
And most of the new car market, made up of franchised dealers protected by tough state vehicle sales laws, hasn’t been able to mimic the click-and-buy purchase process consumers are increasingly able to get everywhere else.
So far, Amazon’s program is small, but dealers are watching. Some are skeptical that Amazon will be able to overcome the challenges that have stymied other companies.
Dyke said concerns that the program will threaten the future of franchised dealerships are “preposterous,” though understandable.
“Amazon, I think, brings a level of sophistication, a level of technology, a level of strength in terms of headcount that they’ve got working on this project, that’s unlike any that I’ve seen,” he said.
Watch the video to learn more.
According to a court filing, embattled Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon wants to delay his Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) trial to mid-March, pending his extradition to the country from Montenegro.
In a Jan. 11 letter to Judge Rakoff, as shared by Inner City Press, Kwon’s legal team revealed that their client wants to appear at the court. Still, his delayed extradition from Montenegro is impeding this availability.
So, he is requesting a “short adjournment of the trial date [until mid-March] to allow for his attendance.”
“We understand the Court cannot put the trial on hold indefinitely, but an adjournment until mid-March would provide a realistic possibility for Mr. Kwon to attend,” the letter added.
However, if his request is denied, Kwon wants the court to instruct the jury that his absence and unavailability to testify should not be “unduly prejudicial to him.”
Kwon has been held up in Montenegro since last March after he was arrested for trying to travel with forged documents. He served a four-month prison sentence in the European country, but his stay was extended by two months due to the legal issues surrounding his possible extradition to the U.S. or South Korea.
Last December, the Montenegro Court of Appeal overturned a lower court’s approval of his extradition because the order breached specific legal provisions.
So, uncertainty looms over where Kwon would be sent. The disgraced crypto tycoon previously expressed preference to be extradited to South Korea. However, Montenegro’s Minister of Justice reportedly leans towards extraditing him to the U.S.
The SEC charged Kwon with eight criminal charges, including securities law violation, wire fraud, and allegations of defrauding the customers of his failed Terra algorithmic TerraUSD (USTC, previously UST) stablecoin. He faces similar charges in South Korea, where his former partner, Daniel Shin, is currently on trial.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York state lawyers increased their request for penalties to over $370 million Friday in Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial. He retorted, “They should pay me.”
The exchange came as lawyers for both sides filed papers highlighting their takeaways from the trial in court filings ahead of closing arguments, set for next Thursday. Trump is expected to attend, though plans could change.
It will be the final chance for state and defense lawyers to make their cases. The civil lawsuit, which accuses the leading Republican presidential hopeful of deceiving banks and insurers by vastly inflating his net worth, is consequential for him even while he fights four criminal cases in various courts.
The New York civil case could end up barring him from doing business in the state where he built his real estate empire. On top of that, state Attorney General Letitia James is seeking the $370 million penalty, plus interest — up from a pretrial figure of $250 million, nudged to over $300 million during the proceeding.
The state says the new sum reflects windfalls from wrongdoing, chiefly $199 million in profits from property sales and $169 million in savings on interest rates, as calculated by an investment banking expert hired by James’ office.
Trump bristled at the proposed penalty, calling it “a disgrace” at a campaign stop in Sioux Center, Iowa.
“There was no victim. There was no default. There was no damages. No nothing,” he said. In an all-caps post hours earlier on his Truth Social platform, he complained that the attorney general was seeking $370 million and instead “should pay me,” asserting that businesses are fleeing New York.
(According to the state Labor Department, the number of private sector jobs in New York increased 1% in the year that ended this past November, compared to 1.6% nationally.)
James’ office argued in a filing Friday that Trump, his company and executives clearly intended to defraud people.
“The myriad deceptive schemes they employed to inflate asset values and conceal facts were so outrageous that they belie innocent explanation,” state lawyer Kevin Wallace wrote.
The state alleges Trump and his company ginned up exorbitant values for golf courses, hotels, and more, including Trump’s former home in his namesake tower in New York and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The numbers were listed on personal financial statements that netted him attractive rates on loans and insurance, leaving him money to invest in other projects and even his 2016 presidential campaign, James’ office says.
The defendants, including Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric, deny any wrongdoing. The former president has painted the case as a political maneuver by James, Judge Arthur Engoron and other Democrats, saying they’re abusing the legal system to try to cut off his chances of winning back the White House this year.
He asserts that his financial statements actually came in billions of dollars low, and that any overestimations — such as valuing his Trump Tower penthouse at nearly three times its actual size — were mere mistakes and made no difference in the overall picture of his fortune.
He also says the documents are essentially legally bulletproof because they said the numbers weren’t audited, among other caveats. Recipients understood them as simply starting points for their own analyses, the defense says.
None of Trump’s lenders testified that they wouldn’t have made the loans or would have charged more interest if his financial statements had shown different numbers, and 10-plus weeks of testimony produced “no factual evidence from any witness that the gains were ill-gotten,” attorneys Michael Madaio and Christopher Kise wrote in a filing Friday. Nor, they said, was there proof that insurers were ripped off.
Separately, defense lawyers argued that claims against Executive Vice Presidents Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. should be dismissed because they never had “anything more than a peripheral knowledge or involvement in the creation, preparation, or use of” their father’s financial statements.
The sons relied on the work of other Trump Organization executives and an outside accounting firm that prepared those documents, attorneys Clifford Robert and Michael Farina said, echoing the scions’ own testimony.
Their father also took the stand, disputing the allegations, decrying the case as political and criticizing the judge and the attorney general. James’ office argued in its filing Friday that Trump was “not a credible witness.”
“He was evasive, gave irrelevant speeches and was incapable of answering questions in a direct and credible manner,” Wallace wrote.
The verdict is up to the judge because James brought the case under a state law that doesn’t allow for a jury. Engoron has said he hopes to decide by the end of this month.
He will weigh claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. But he ruled before trial on the lawsuit’s top claim, finding that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud for years. With that ruling, the judge ordered that a receiver take control of some of the ex-president’s properties, but an appeals court has frozen that order for now.
During the trial, Engoron fined Trump a total of $15,000 after finding that he violated a gag order. The order, imposed after Trump maligned a law clerk, barred all trial participants from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff.
Trump’s lawyers are appealing the gag order.
___
Contributing were Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Jill Colvin in New York and Hannah Fingerhut in Sioux Center, Iowa.
Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, the founder and former CEO of Binance, is contesting the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) motion to restrict his travel before sentencing, asserting he doesn’t pose a flight risk.
On Nov. 23, CryptoSlate reported that the DOJ moved to prevent CZ from leaving the U.S., arguing that the Binance founder posed a flight risk because of his substantial wealth and family connections in the UAE.
However, CZ’s legal team rebuts this claim, highlighting U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian A. Tsuchida’s prior decision to grant bail and voluntarily permit CZ to return to the UAE.
“As Judge Tsuchida concluded, based on a complete record, [that] Mr. Zhao presents no risk of flight, having voluntarily come before the Court to accept responsibility and plead guilty, and the government’s motion should be denied.”
They emphasize CZ’s commitment to accepting responsibility for his actions and his lack of criminal history. Additionally, they assert that his guilty plea underlines his intent to cooperate with the court.
Besides that, the filing highlights that CZ’s voluntary appearance was pivotal in resolving the government’s case against Binance. The defense further argues against the government’s contention regarding the lack of an extradition treaty between the U.S. and the UAE, citing inconsistencies in similar bail cases involving foreign defendants.
Regarding sentencing, CZ’s legal team has hinted at advocating for no jail time for their client.
Instead, they argue that CZ might be “eligible to serve half of any term of imprisonment in a non-jail setting, such as home detention or community confinement.” The lawyers plan to draw on precedents for similar offenses that could support their client’s release.
The U.S. government indicates a potential maximum 18-month prison term in line with federal guidelines for CZ’s case.
The UK government appears to be intent on expanding digital assets throughout the nation. To this effect, it now looks forward to passing legislation to implement the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS).
Recent efforts by the United Kingdom (UK) suggest that the nation may be looking to expand its digital assets sector. This follows the news that British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt recently announced new legislation to that effect. This statement came alongside a mini-budget of 110 measures that the UK has highlighted for the improvement of its economy.
Per the announcement, the UK government appears to be intent on expanding digital assets throughout the nation. To this effect, it now looks forward to passing legislation to implement the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS). The UK plans to use the DSS to bolster the adoption of these assets across various financial markets in the long run. The budget statement reads in part:
“The government will lay a statutory instrument to implement the Digital Securities Sandbox, delivering on the Edinburgh Reform announcement to implement a Financial Market Infrastructure Sandbox in 2023.”
According to the statement, the UK government had launched a study in July, with hopes of learning more about the potential benefits of the DSS. Although it plans to release the results of the study at a later date, the DSS initiative is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2024.
It might be worth mentioning that the upcoming DSS initiative is different from the Digital Sandbox that is already in place. Recall that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched the Digital Sandbox in August. At the time, the FCA claimed that the Digital Sandbox would be focused on helping digital product development firms that are in their early stages.
Helen Boyd, who is the FCA Head of Capital Markets, has also attempted to explain the difference in the initiatives. Last month, Boyd noted that the DSS will have “a new rule set that would allow it to do new things with digital securities.”
Whatever might be the case, the DSS is set to be made law via a statutory instrument. That is, Parliament does not necessarily have to pass the legislation into law for it to be enforced as a rule.
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According to the country’s government, Belgium plans to accelerate the development of a European blockchain infrastructure during its presidency of the Council of the European Union in early 2024.
The proposal aims to facilitate the secure storage of official documents like driving licenses and property titles.
The development of a public blockchain for pan-EU infrastructure is among the four priorities of Belgium’s upcoming presidency, the country’s Secretary of State for Digitization, Mathieu Michel, told Science|Business on Nov. 21. The remaining three initiatives will take on the matters of artificial intelligence (AI), online anonymity and the skills necessary for the digital economy.
Related: German parliament member ’staunch opponent’ of digital euro, all in on Bitcoin
Michel suggests rebooting the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) project, which was established by the European Commission in 2018 in collaboration with the European Blockchain Partnership, comprising the 27 EU member states plus Norway and Liechtenstein:
“That is a technical project. If we want to build a common infrastructure, it has to become a European project and a political project.”
The renewed EBSI would be renamed Europeum and used for public administration tasks, such as verifying driver’s licenses and other documents across the EU. According to Michel, the project could also support the digital euro infrastructure.
The official said it is important to use a public blockchain developed by EU member-states, not private alternatives:
“In terms of security, transparency, and privacy, the blockchain can give control back to the citizen of the data that belongs to them.”
At the moment, Italy, Croatia, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Luxembourg, and Romania have already signed up for the Europeum plan. The head office of the project will be in Belgium.
The process of regulatory consolidation around crypto and blockchain is moving steadily. In early November, 47 national governments issued a joint pledge to “swiftly transpose” the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) — a new international standard on automatic exchange of information between tax authorities — into their domestic law systems.
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Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis has sought court approval for its proposed settlement agreement with collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), according to a Nov. 9 court filing.
Under the agreement, 3AC will have an allowed general unsecured claim of $33 million against the bankrupt lender instead of the previous over $1 billion claim against Genesis. Besides that, Genesis will also relinquish all of its claims and entitlements to an undisclosed amount of Avalanche’s AVAX tokens and Near Protocol’s NEAR. The bankrupt firms will also “mutually release each other” from any remaining liabilities.
The beleaguered lender explained that the settlement was necessary to provide a smooth path for its Chapter 11 reorganization plans and to eliminate any risks and expenses that litigation might have brought.
According to the filing:
“The proposed settlement will, among other benefits to the Genesis Debtors’ estates, significantly smooth the path to confirmation of the Genesis Debtors’ chapter 11 plan of reorganization, prompt distributions thereunder, and eliminate the risks, expenses, and uncertainty associated with protracted litigation among the Parties.”
Genesis explained that 3AC’s $1 billion claim against it was the largest after it had resolved that of the failed crypto exchange FTX. CryptoSlate reported that FTX settled its claims with the lender for $175 million.
The company further said 3AC was one of its largest borrowers before its collapse. Per the filing, the hedge fund borrowed over $2 billion between 2020 and 2022 and still owed about $1.2 billion in unsecured claims despite the foreclosure of its collateral last year.
The proposed settlement agreement was filed at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and still requires Judge Sean Lane’s approval.
Other creditors like Gemini can object to this settlement before Nov. 24, and a hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 30, where the parties will have a chance to argue against the settlement terms before implementation.
The post Genesis seeks court approval to slash 3AC claim from $1B to $33M appeared first on CryptoSlate.
Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has requested the bankruptcy court in Delaware allow it to sell certain key trust fund assets, including from crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments and custody service provider Bitwise, valued at around $744 million.
In a court filing dated Nov. 3, FTX debtors requested the court to allow them to sell trust assets to enable the firm to prepare for “forthcoming dollarized distributions to creditors.”
These trust assets are held in one Bitwise trust valued at $53 million and five Grayscale trusts valued at $691 million. The trusts act as an onboarding instrument for investors to gain crypto exposure without owning the assets.
The court filing reads:
“The Debtors’ judgment is that proactively mitigating the risk of price swings will best protect the value of the Trust Assets, thereby maximizing the return to creditors and promoting an equitable distribution of funds in the Debtors’ plan of reorganization.”
The FTX debtors requested that an investment adviser should approve the sale of trust assets and sale procedures. They also proposed a pricing committee represented by the stakeholders to be part of the sale procedure.
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The latest request by FTX debaters for the sale of trust assets comes after the court had earlier approved the liquidation of nearly $3.4 billion in crypto assets. The court ordered the sale of these assets in batches of $50 million and $100 million to avoid any market dump effects.
The FTX bankruptcy proceedings are proceeding as its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was found guilty by a jury on all seven counts during his criminal trial in New York. Bankman-Fried was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of securities fraud, one count of commodities fraud conspiracy and one count of money laundering conspiracy. The judge is set to hand down sentencing in the case on March 28, 2024.
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