Quantuma appointed to AAX collapse

Quantuma has been appointed to oversee the provisional liquidation of crypto exchange Atom Holdings and five of its subsidiaries.

The firm’s Caribbean lead and managing director, Angela Barkhouse, and Cayman-based director, Kim Leck, were appointed joint provisional liquidators (JPL’s) of Atom on March 8.

This is as a result of a winding up petition being presented by creditors to the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands along with an application to appoint provisional liquidators over the holding company.

Atom is a holding company for a group of entities previously involved in operating a cryptocurrency exchange which offered saving, spot and future cryptocurrency trading and exchange services through the Atom Asset Exchange (AAX).

The joint provisional liquidators have taken control of Atom’s subsidiary companies in Singapore, Seychelles and Malta.

The case has been the subject to a seal and gagging order which has provided time for the JPLs to take preliminary actions in securing the group structure, investigate the location of assets and identify claims on behalf of creditors seeking to recover funds.

Barkhouse said: “Following the collapse of FTX, AAX senior management issued a statement urging calm amongst its users and indicating that assets stored on its exchange were safe. Uncertainty for AAX platform users has grown exponentially following a suspension of withdrawals and the closure of its operations in November 2022.

“It is my understanding that the petitioners and other platform users have reportedly filed complaints against entities within the Atom Group to a range of law and enforcement agencies, including the Singapore Police Force, Hong Kong Police Force and the Seychelles Anti-Corruption Commission, as well as the Federal Trade Commission in the United States.”

She added: “The Hong Kong Police launched an investigation which has resulted in the arrest of two Atom Group employees, Liang Haoming and Thor Chan, on 23 December 2022, on the basis of Fraud and “Misleading Officers.

“Luke and I, along with our highly skilled teams are working closely with established cryptocurrency investigators and intend to maximise the return of deposits to the affected AAX users through recovery efforts including securing existing assets on exchanges, investigating transfer of crypto assets and company funds, liaising with law enforcement authorities and recovering unauthorised transfers of asset out of the group.”

The appointment over Atom is Quantuma’s latest of six high-profile cryptocurrency trading and exchange platform cases it is engaged on.