Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, has hired a former SEC official who oversaw many of the regulator’s biggest crypto cases as her lawyer in the federal investigation into the disastrous collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. According to people familiar with the matter, Stephanie Avakian, former enforcement division chief at the Securities and Exchange Commission, is representing Ellison alongside other lawyers at her firm, WilmerHale. Alameda was FTX’s Hong Kong-based sister trading company, and allegations that billions of dollars in customer funds deposited at the exchange were traded by Alameda are being investigated by FTX’s bankruptcy team, Congress, regulators, and Manhattan prosecutors.
