By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Prime Minister allegedly asked Sam Bankman-Fried to provide advice to his son about a digital assets project the latter was working on just two months before FTX collapsed.

The disclosure came during the FTX founder’s ongoing New York trial over the misappropriation of billions of dollars in client funds, when prosecutors asked an investigating FBI agent to clarify why Mr Bankman-Fried is facing wire fraud charges.

Danielle Kudla, from the US attorney’s office for southern New York, produced a September 2022 email purportedly sent by Philip Davis KC to the FTX founder as confirmation of the latter’s phone number. The message, sent from a gmail address and allegedly containing Mr Davis’ contact information, saw Mr Bankman-Fried send his own phone number in reply.

The Coindesk website, which is covering the latter’s trial, reported that Mr Davis in the e-mail asked Mr Bankman-Fried if his son could call the FTX chief to talk and seek advice about a non-fungible token (NFT) project he was working on. NFTs are a form of digital assets. Mr Bankman-Fried allegedly seemed agreeable, and said he would be available to the Prime Minister’s son via Zoom or phone.

No comment or response was received from the Prime Minister or his office despite Tribune inquiries yesterday. Latrae Rahming, his communications director, said Mr Davis was in Canada at a CARICOM summit with that country but he was hoping to hear back from him. No reply was received before press time last night.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the Prime Minister in relation to the e-mail or contacting Mr Bankman-Fried, although Coindesk reported that it “underscores the cosy relationship” the FTX chief “enjoyed with officials in The Bahamas”.

The latest disclosure comes after the Prime Minister’s Office was earlier this month forced to state that Mr Davis never entertained proposals from Mr Bankman-Fried to pay off the country’s $11.6bn national debt.

Its statement came after The Times of London published an excerpt of author Michael Lewis’ biography of Mr Bankman-Fried. The excerpt said: “Sam explained that he was trying to decide whether simply to pay off the $9bn Bahamas national debt himself, so the country could fix roads and build schools and so on.

“He’d recently met the new prime minister to discuss this idea and some others. I learnt later from one of the Prime Minister’s aides that after the Bahamian general election in September 2021, Sam was the first person the Prime Minister had wanted to meet.”

Mr Rahming, in response, said: “We wish to clarify recent reports surrounding a meeting between Prime Minister Philip Davis and Mr Sam Bankman-Fried. Discussions were strictly confined to FTX’s relocation and its operations in The Bahamas, specifically concerning the invitation extended to the Prime Minister for the inauguration of FTX’s new headquarters.

“Mr Bankman-Fried advised the Prime Minister that FTX had changed its position from a satellite office to opening a headquarters. Prime Minister Davis used the platform at the company’s opening to signal that The Bahamas is open for business in the digital currency space.”