BlockFi sues FTX’s Bankman-Fried over shares in Robinhood

Newly-bankrupt crypto lending platform BlockFi has filed a lawsuit against Sam Bankman-Fried’s holding company Emergent Fidelity Technologies seeking his shares in Robinhood that were pledged as collateral earlier in November.

The suit was filed on Nov. 28 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey just hours after BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the same court.

As per the filing, BlockFi is demanding Emergent turnover collateral as part of a Nov. 9 pledge agreement that saw Emergent agree to a payment schedule with BlockFi that it has allegedly failed to pay.

BlockFi names the collateral as “including certain shares of common stock.”

In May, Bankman-Fried acquired a 7.6% stake in the online brokerage firm Robinhood, buying a total of $648 million in Robinhood shares through his Emergent investment company.

Related: FTX collapse drives curiosity around Sam Bankman-Fried, Google data shows

BlockFi is one of the latest firms to file for bankruptcy as a result of the collapse of FTX crypto exchange.

The crypto firm initially previously denied that a majority of its assets were held on FTX earlier in the month, but also acknowledged “significant exposure” to FTX.

In its bankruptcy filing, BlockFi stated that it has assets between $1 billion and $10 billion with liabilities in the same range, along with over 100,000 creditors.