QuadrigaCX monitor Ernst & Young suspects that the beleaguered exchange’s late CEO, Gerald Cotten, may have been financing personal expenditures with company funds, and it is now recommending that the assets in Cotten’s estate be placed under a preservation order.In January, the exchange announced that it was insolvent, owing clients roughly $250 million CAD, after Cotten died of septic shock while honeymooning with his wife, Jennifer Robertson, in Jaipur, India. Since Cotten’s death, the exchange filed for creditor protections in the Nova Scotia court system and the court has appointed a dual counsel in Miller Thompson and Cox & Palmer to represent clients who lost money to the exchange.The exposure of a handful of opaque business practices, as well as the confirmation that one of QuadrigaCX’s co-founders, Michael Patryn, has been convicted of cyber fraud, has stirred speculation as to whether the exchange was ever legitimate enough to redeem withdrawals.In its fourth report as court monitor, Ernst & Young’s latest findings are sure to give skeptics more reason to doubt.To start, the report states that Robertson, who, along with her stepfather Thomas Beazley, has been acting on QuadrigaCX’s behalf during the court proceedings, “would prefer not to continue acting as a director of the [exchange].” This follows the news that QuadrigaCX’s legal counsel, Stewart McKelvey, is stepping down from the case, though the f...
