SEC Sues Kraken for Operating as Unregistered Securities Exchange

SEC Charges Kraken for Operating as an Unregistered Securities Exchange, Broker, Dealer, and Clearing Agency

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Payward Inc. and Payward Ventures Inc., together known as Kraken, with operating Kraken’s crypto trading platform as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency.

According to the SEC’s complaint, since at least September 2018, Kraken has made hundreds of millions of dollars unlawfully facilitating the buying and selling of crypto asset securities. The SEC alleges that Kraken intertwines the traditional services of an exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency without having registered any of those functions with the Commission as required by law. Kraken’s alleged failure to register these functions has deprived investors of significant protections, including inspection by the SEC, recordkeeping requirements, and safeguards against conflicts of interest, among others.

US DOJ Seeks More than $4B From Binance to End Criminal Case

The US Justice Department is seeking more than $4 billion from Binance Holdings Ltd. as part of a proposed resolution of a years-long investigation into the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Negotiations between the Justice Department and Binance include the possibility that its founder Changpeng Zhao would face criminal charges in the US under an agreement to resolve the probe into alleged money laundering, bank fraud and sanctions violations, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Zhao, also known as “CZ,” is residing in the United Arab Emirates, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US, but that doesn’t prevent him from coming voluntarily.

Exclusive: US securities regulator signals it may curb climate rule ambitions

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials have told lobbyists and corporate executives in recent days that the agency’s long-anticipated climate rules may scale back some of the most demanding greenhouse gas emissions disclosure requirements that it had proposed.

At issue are so-called Scope 3 emissions that account for greenhouse gases released in the atmosphere from a company’s supply chain and the consumption of its products by customers, according to people familiar with the conversations.

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In private meetings with representatives of companies and other stakeholders, some SEC officials have said that mandating Scope 3 disclosures could make the rule more vulnerable to legal challenges which, if successful, could tie the agency’s hands when writing other rules, according to the sources.

Wall Street heads to court to fend off Biden’s regulators

“The regulatory agencies are more willing to cut corners. They’re giving industry short comment periods and they’re not going through the APA process,” said Tom Quaadman, an executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The group usually has one active case against financial regulators, but currently has two against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and one against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), he said.

Others are suing for the first time. In September, six industry groups including the Managed Funds Association (MFA) and Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) alleged in a filing with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that SEC private fund rules violated the APA, the pair’s first suit against a regulator.

“Ordinarily, litigation against a national regulator is not a course of action we would seek to pursue,” said AIMA CEO Jack Inglis, but the group felt “compelled to” because the SEC overstepped its authority and didn’t account for legitimate industry concerns.

Celsius Revamp Plan Hits Speed Bump With SEC: Source

An ambitious plan to form a new crypto services business from the ashes of bankrupt lender Celsius has run into a speed bump with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a person familiar with the situation.

A “back and forth” regarding information around assets held by the Celsius estate is taking place between the SEC, the Celsius Creditors Committee and Fahrenheit, an investment vehicle that won a bidding contest in May of this year to issue shares in a new crypto business built upon the bankrupt lender’s remaining assets, the source told CoinDesk.

“My understanding is that the SEC asked for more information to make a determination,” the person said. “The way I’m interpreting it is the SEC is telling the committee what they want to see for various parts of the business, and now the committee has to decide what they’re going to do with that information.”