FTX Bankruptcy Estate Paid $948 Million in Fees by Jan. 2, 2025

FTX’s bankruptcy estate paid $948 million in professional fees through Jan. 2, 2025, while its successor trust recorded $85 million in operating expenses in early 2026, illustrating costs that persisted years after the collapse.

FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022. Sullivan & Cromwell, its lead law firm, received about $249 million for legal work that included litigation and court matters. Alvarez & Marsal received about $306 million for financial services. Lawyers and advisers hired by a creditor committee received roughly $110 million. The committee represented creditors’ interests and hired its own professionals. Their fees, like other professional charges, came from estate assets that otherwise were available for creditor repayments. At Sullivan & Cromwell, partners charged as much as $2,165 per hour.

FTX had poor accounting records, and its funds were spread across more than 130 affiliated companies. Reconstructing accounts and tracing assets formed part of the work to unwind the exchange. Professionals billed by the hour as lawyers, financial advisers and other consultants worked on the estate’s affairs.

Katherine Stadler, the court-appointed fee examiner, reviewed bills for duplicate or excessive charges and advised the court on approval. During the first three months of the case, 242 lawyers billed time. Bills for that period totaled $88.8 million, and Stadler recommended approval of $85.1 million. By June 2023, fees had topped $200 million within the case’s first seven months.

For comparison, fees in Celsius’ first six months of bankruptcy totaled $87 million, a shorter period than FTX’s first-seven-month figure.

Costs continued in a different form years later. FTX Recovery Trust recorded $85 million in operating expenses in the first quarter of 2026. Separately, nearly $2 billion in claims were disputed, and lawsuits sought to recover money transferred before FTX collapsed.

The fee tally ends Jan. 2, 2025, while the operating-expense figure covers the first three months of 2026. The figures measure different kinds of costs, alongside disputed claims and recovery lawsuits that remained part of the bankruptcy process years after FTX’s filing.