US sues world’s largest crypto exchange and CEO for alleged regulatory violations

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is suing cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its CEO for allegedly breaking U.S. regulatory law, labeling the firm’s compliance efforts a “sham.”

In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the CFTC filed a complaint on Monday against Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao. The transaction was allegedly run by Binance, Zhao, and many companies in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC legislation, according to the authorities.

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Samuel Lim, the former deputy compliance officer of Binance, is also charged in the problem with aiding and abetting the platform’s alleged violations.

Despite Binance’s lack of authorization to conduct business domestically, the CFTC claimed that Zhao and Lim collaborated to entice U.S. – based trading customers. Authorities claimed in a press release on Monday that Binance runs the transaction through” an intentionally opaque common business” and numerous corporate companies.

The plaintiffs engaged in” a calculated strategy of governmental trading to their financial benefit ,” the CFTC continued.

The complaint calls for monetary penalties and disgorgement, which would compel Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, to pay back gains that were wrongfully obtained. Regulators are equally requesting permanent bans on trading and registration as well as a permanent injunction against deeper regulatory violations.

The committee’s complaint against Binance is centered on the defendants’ alleged intentional evasion of U.S. law, according to Gretchen Lowe, principal deputy director and chief counsel of the CFTC Enforcement Division. The defendants’ own emails and chats reveal that Binance’s a efforts have been a lie and that the company purposefully chose, time and time again, to prioritize profits over upholding the law.

Because Binance has been working” collaboratively” with the CFTC for more than two years, a spokesperson for the company told the Washington Examiner that the legal filing was” unexpected and disappointing.”

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The representative stated in a statement that” over the past two years, we have made significant investments to make sure that US users are not engaged on our platform.”

According to the spokesperson,” during that time, we increased our compliance team from about 100 people to about 750 core and supporting compliance personnel today, including essentially 80 personnel with prior experience in law enforcement or regulatory agencies and nearly 260 employees with professional certificates in compliance.”