QuadrigaCX Founder’s Widow Voluntarily Transfers $9M To EY Canada For User Reimbursement

Gerry’s widow set to transfer $9 million USD in assets owned by her late husband, to the accredited investors with funds locked and lost on a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, QuadrigaCX. According to a personal statement from Jennifer Robertson, Gerry’s widow will hand over the assets to the bankruptcy Trustee, Ernst & Young Canada to be distributed to the investors.

The Gerry private key saga

For those familiar with the whole QuadrigaCX saga, you can skip this section. In this section, we explain (in brief) the QuadrigaCX saga and the ongoing proceedings in the case.

Following the death of Gerald Cotton (Gerry), the founder of the Canadian based crypto exchange and holder of the users’ private keys, users could no longer access their funds on the platform. This led to the exchange declaring bankruptcy as they no longer could access crypto assets held in the company’s cold wallets.

In mid-2019, the audit reports from the exchange showed Cotten was misappropriating users’ funds and held these users’ funds in his own personal wallet. These reports led to four major domestic and international financial authorities investigating the exchange for further inconsistencies.

EY Canada and Miller Thomson since took over as Trustees of the users to ensure the funds are recovered and reimbursed to the customers.

Robertson surrenders assets to EY Canada

In a personal statement addressed to EY Canada, Jennifer states she is making “every effort to assist in the recovery of QuadrigaCX assets for the benefit of Affected Users.” She looks forward to relinquishing most of her assets in a “voluntary settlement agreement” with the Trustee expected to total to $9 million USD. The personal statement from her lawyer reads,

“I have now entered into a voluntary settlement agreement where the vast majority of my assets and all of the Estate’s assets are being returned to QCX to benefit the Affected Users. These assets originally came from QCX in the direction of Gerry.”

With approval from the courts, EY will liquidate the assets and start the process to reimburse users’ stolen and locked funds from the exchange.

According to a BEG report in June, an audit on the exchange found out the founder was misappropriating users’ funds and moved the assets to his personal wallet. However, Jennifer recuses herself from any knowledge of Gerry’s activities in running QuadrigaCX. She said,

“I had no direct knowledge of how Gerry operated the business prior to his death and was not aware of his improper actions in managing the QuadrigaCX business. […] Specifically, I was not aware of nor participated in Gerry’s trading activities, nor his appropriation of the Affected User’s funds.”

Here is her letter in full: