Former FTX engineer Nishad Singh agrees to $3.7M penalty in CFTC settlement

Former FTX head of engineering Nishad Singh has agreed to pay a $3.7 million fine to resolve his case with the US commodities regulator.

Summary

• Nishad Singh agreed to pay $3.7 million in disgorgement to settle CFTC charges tied to FTX’s collapse and misuse of customer funds.
• The settlement includes a five-year trading ban and an eight-year registration ban, with regulators citing his cooperation in limiting further penalties.

Singh will pay a disgorgement of $3.7 million as part of a supplemental consent order for his role in the collapse of FTX and the misappropriation of user funds, according to an April 1 statement from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

As part of the supplemental consent order, he has also been handed a five-year ban on trading in markets and an eight-year registration ban that blocks him from obtaining a license to operate within the sector.

CFTC enforcement director David Miller ruled out additional restitution or civil monetary penalties for now and said the current resolution reflects Singh’s cooperation with authorities.

“The defendant engaged in, and aided, significant violations of the Act and CFTC regulations as the former FTX head of engineering, and the consent orders reflect the severity of these violations,” Miller said.

A Bloomberg report noted that attorneys representing Singh said he was grateful the matter had been resolved and added that the regulator recognized his limited role in the underlying conduct.

Singh was accused of personally misappropriating millions of dollars in assets as part of FTX’s collapse. The commission charged the former executive with two counts of fraud by misappropriation and aiding and abetting fraud.

Subsequently, he entered into the consent order and agreed to cooperate with the commission’s investigators.

As previously reported by crypto.news, Singh was also spared from prison and received three years of supervised release.

FTX founder seeks retrial

In the meantime, FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has filed a pro se motion seeking a new trial in his federal fraud case.

Bankman-Fried is currently serving a 25-year sentence on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy but has argued that key witness testimony was missing from his 2023 trial.