Funded Engineer Shut Down: What Happened and How It Ended

Funded Engineer shut down permanently on 15 July 2024. The collapse ran across roughly 15 months, starting with an audit by technology provider FPFX Technologies in January 2024 and ending with a Florida court ruling in May 2025.

FPFX Technologies terminated the Funded Engineer licence on 7 February 2024 after a January 2024 audit. FPFX Technologies alleged that Funded Engineer manipulated records to reduce the fees owed under the software services agreement signed on 2 June 2023.

FPFX Technologies described the conduct to FinanceFeeds as a months-long scheme to inflate payout figures. The specific allegations were that Funded Engineer created fake trading accounts, bypassed AML and KYC checks, engaged in wash trading, and generated fictitious payouts. FPFX Technologies alleged the wash trading alone cost it around $700,000 in revenue.

On the payout side, FPFX Technologies alleged that Funded Engineer manually created fake user profiles in its admin portal, approved payouts in the system without disbursing any money, and simulated payments through crypto wallets and global payroll services with no matching blockchain transactions. FPFX Technologies concluded that Funded Engineer had overstated its payouts by more than $2 million, a figure co-founder Tristian Talbot had promoted on social media.

Funded Engineer announced permanent closure on its social channels on 15 July 2024, with all operations ceasing immediately. Funded Engineer said it had been unable to overcome its financial situation and would be filing for bankruptcy.

Funded Engineer stated it had explored strategic restructuring, cost-cutting, and additional investment over the preceding months, and that none of it worked. The Funded Engineer website replaced normal service with a notice of ceasing operations and removed client account access, as reported by Finance Magnates.

Two things sat behind the closure beyond the FPFX Technologies dispute. Funded Engineer lost its brokerage partner after the licence termination. Funded Engineer was also operating during the MetaQuotes crackdown, which cut MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 access for prop firms without their own licence or a broker relationship. That same pressure ended True Forex Funds and a long list of firms in 2024.

The Circuit Court of Palm Beach County granted FPFX Technologies a judicial default on 13 May 2025 against Funded Engineer and its two named principals. FPFX Technologies CEO Justin Hertzberg said the company intended to enforce the ruling and pursue close to $1 million still owed.

FPFX Technologies filed the case in Florida in April 2024. The complaint named Tristian Talbot, based in Thailand, and Harri Jean David Sawicki, based in Vietnam, as controlling Funded Engineer and its website.

What a judicial default actually means

A judicial default is granted when defendants fail to appear and defend a case. FPFX Technologies won because Funded Engineer, Tristian Talbot, and Harri Sawicki did not contest the claims in court. The allegations were never weighed by a judge or jury on their merits.

That distinction matters for anyone reading the coverage. A default judgment records that nobody showed up. A trial verdict records that the evidence was tested and found convincing. Most reporting on this case blurs the two.

No public record shows any Funded Engineer trader recovering funds. Funded Engineer said nothing about pending payouts in its closure announcement, and traders lost access to their accounts when the site went dark.

Finance Magnates noted at the time that any payout claims would likely fall under the bankruptcy procedure Funded Engineer said it would begin, and that such processes can take years to settle. Since no bankruptcy filing has been publicly confirmed, no claims process has been publicly identified either.

The roughly $1 million FPFX Technologies is pursuing under the May 2025 ruling is money owed to FPFX Technologies as a creditor. That sum is not a trader compensation fund and does not reach traders.

Funded Engineer failed at the infrastructure layer before it failed with traders. The licence termination on 7 February 2024 removed the technology the firm ran on, and the closure followed five months later. Traders had no visibility into that dependency.

Published payout numbers are marketing until verified

Funded Engineer promoted payout figures that FPFX Technologies later alleged were overstated by more than $2 million. Payout claims published by a firm about itself carry no independent verification. Look for third-party payout evidence or dated proof rather than a number on a landing page.

Single-provider firms carry concentrated risk

Funded Engineer ran on one technology provider and lost everything when that relationship ended. The same structural weakness appears across the 2024 closures, including Fast Track Trading and firms that depended entirely on MetaTrader access through a third party.

Closure statements rarely address trader money

Funded Engineer published a detailed closure statement that covered its own restructuring efforts and said nothing about pending payouts. That pattern repeats. Our guide on how to check whether a prop firm is legit covers the warning signs that show up before a firm reaches this stage, and the MyForexFunds case shows how differently a collapse can read once the full record emerges.