[2020-04-04] Class-action lawsuits filed against 11 Bitcoin companies

[layer1gfx]

Class-action lawsuits filed against 11 Bitcoin companies

'Red Wedding' lawsuits were filed against Binance, BitMEX, Tron Foundation and other major crypto companies alleging they sold unregistered securities.

By Tim Copeland and Amy Castor



In brief

• Class-action lawsuits have been served against 11 companies in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
• The lawsuits focus on the selling of cryptocurrency tokens, which are claimed to be unregistered securities.
• One company has already settled with the SEC over an ICO.

In a coordinated strike against some of the best-known companies in crypto, a US law firm issued a barrage of class-action lawsuits aimed at Binance, Block.one, Bitmex, Tron and several others. The lawsuits allege that the firms bilked investors by selling unlawful securities in the form of digital tokens.

First spotted by the website Offshore Alert, the 11 suits were filed on Friday by the New York “litigation boutique” firm Roche Cyrulnik Freedman. The suits named 42 defendants in more than a dozen countries, including the British Virgin Islands, Canada, Cayman Islands, China, Estonia, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Malta, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, US, and Vietnam.

https://decrypt.co/24532/class-action-lawsuits-filed-against-7-bitcoin-companies

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[bbc.reporter]

I reckon the defendants will invoke their right to delay their replies by invoking the coronavirus pandemic hehehe.

Also, the article mentioned that plaintiffs included Chase Williams, Alexander Clifford, William Zhang and Eric Lee. Who are these people? I would be skeptical if they are investors of other competing cryptocoin projects.

[hv_]

Big thing / diff link https://www.theblockcrypto.com/amp/post/60930/top-crypto-exchanges-token-issuers-named-in-friday-barrage-of-u-s-class-action-lawsuits

.... "They separately name Binance, Civic, BProtocol, Status, Block.one, KayDex, Quantstamp, BiBox, TRON Foundation, KuCoin, HDR Global Trading, and many of their principals, including crypto notables such as Brendan Blumer, Dan Larimer, Vinny Lingham, and Binance founder Changpeng ("CZ") Zhao. "

[layer1gfx]

i guess they will get enough time to react and most likely have enough funds ready to pay in case they are fined.
it would take months to see results, so let's see what happens.
i think, if they took scammers knowingly on board they should deal with the consequences.
if they haven't done anything wrong, i am sure they can prove it and can clear their name.

[coolcoinz]

Such cases can take years if aimed at local companies. When you're suing offshore firms it's going to be a pain for the court to be able to schedule hearings and such and for the prosecutors to go through all the translations. They must be aware that defendants will hide behind their local laws and will keep delaying everything.
This case is just for show IMO, unless they want to keep coming to court for the next couple years.

The main problem of the US and their law is that while all countries believe that if your citizens go somewhere and buy something, they need to check if it's fine with their local law. So if you buy a gun in an online store and your country doesn't allow guns, you will have to take responsibility for it and possibly face a fine and lose the gun.
The US law makes it so that if someone buys a restricted item online, it's the fault of the seller. The seller should have asked where the client is from and be aware of all the US laws and regulations. Tell me this isn't crazy.

[hv_]

Such cases can take years if aimed at local companies. When you're suing offshore firms it's going to be a pain for the court to be able to schedule hearings and such and for the prosecutors to go through all the translations. They must be aware that defendants will hide behind their local laws and will keep delaying everything.
This case is just for show IMO, unless they want to keep coming to court for the next couple years.

The main problem of the US and their law is that while all countries believe that if your citizens go somewhere and buy something, they need to check if it's fine with their local law. So if you buy a gun in an online store and your country doesn't allow guns, you will have to take responsibility for it and possibly face a fine and lose the gun.
The US law makes it so that if someone buys a restricted item online, it's the fault of the seller. The seller should have asked where the client is from and be aware of all the US laws and regulations. Tell me this isn't crazy.

The latest case around telegram coin say sth different, it's not enough to just exclude US tax payer

[Betwrong]

Such cases can take years if aimed at local companies. When you're suing offshore firms it's going to be a pain for the court to be able to schedule hearings and such and for the prosecutors to go through all the translations. They must be aware that defendants will hide behind their local laws and will keep delaying everything.
This case is just for show IMO, unless they want to keep coming to court for the next couple years.

The main problem of the US and their law is that while all countries believe that if your citizens go somewhere and buy something, they need to check if it's fine with their local law. So if you buy a gun in an online store and your country doesn't allow guns, you will have to take responsibility for it and possibly face a fine and lose the gun.
The US law makes it so that if someone buys a restricted item online, it's the fault of the seller. The seller should have asked where the client is from and be aware of all the US laws and regulations. Tell me this isn't crazy.

No it's not, if all the seller has to do is just asking the client about the legality in his/her place. It would be, though, if the seller would still be responsible in the case of customer's lying.

Regarding the article, I personally think that the platforms shouldn't be liable for what's selling there, but it's the law, so, we should comply, I guess.

[crwth]

I understand the lawsuit filed with BitMEX, with them acting as like a "casino" in terms of the "manipulations" of the market in their site. Having them take the website offline that liquidated high leveraged positions. But with others just trading different tokens, EOS, TRX, etc. Why would the Bitcoin companies have no licensing in the first place? They have just started it themselves, I guess.

[gentlemand]

I can't say I'd be desperately sad if any of those joints or projects were cleaned out and subsequently fucked off for good. They won't of course. There's no word on who's instigated or joined it. Who is it?

[bbc.reporter]

Big thing / diff link https://www.theblockcrypto.com/amp/post/60930/top-crypto-exchanges-token-issuers-named-in-friday-barrage-of-u-s-class-action-lawsuits

.... "They separately name Binance, Civic, BProtocol, Status, Block.one, KayDex, Quantstamp, BiBox, TRON Foundation, KuCoin, HDR Global Trading, and many of their principals, including crypto notables such as Brendan Blumer, Dan Larimer, Vinny Lingham, and Binance founder Changpeng ("CZ") Zhao. "

How many of them have the funding to pay for good layers and reduce the case into a settlement and a fee payment for the SEC?

Such cases can take years if aimed at local companies. When you're suing offshore firms it's going to be a pain for the court to be able to schedule hearings and such and for the prosecutors to go through all the translations. They must be aware that defendants will hide behind their local laws and will keep delaying everything.
This case is just for show IMO, unless they want to keep coming to court for the next couple years.

The main problem of the US and their law is that while all countries believe that if your citizens go somewhere and buy something, they need to check if it's fine with their local law. So if you buy a gun in an online store and your country doesn't allow guns, you will have to take responsibility for it and possibly face a fine and lose the gun.
The US law makes it so that if someone buys a restricted item online, it's the fault of the seller. The seller should have asked where the client is from and be aware of all the US laws and regulations. Tell me this isn't crazy.

The latest case around telegram coin say sth different, it's not enough to just exclude US tax payer

However, the developers have declared that they will still turn on their platform and issue the tokens. What can America do?

Source https://cointelegraph.com/news/ton-community-no-one-can-prevent-the-launch-of-ton

[hv_]

Big thing / diff link https://www.theblockcrypto.com/amp/post/60930/top-crypto-exchanges-token-issuers-named-in-friday-barrage-of-u-s-class-action-lawsuits

.... "They separately name Binance, Civic, BProtocol, Status, Block.one, KayDex, Quantstamp, BiBox, TRON Foundation, KuCoin, HDR Global Trading, and many of their principals, including crypto notables such as Brendan Blumer, Dan Larimer, Vinny Lingham, and Binance founder Changpeng ("CZ") Zhao. "

How many of them have the funding to pay for good layers and reduce the case into a settlement and a fee payment for the SEC?

Such cases can take years if aimed at local companies. When you're suing offshore firms it's going to be a pain for the court to be able to schedule hearings and such and for the prosecutors to go through all the translations. They must be aware that defendants will hide behind their local laws and will keep delaying everything.
This case is just for show IMO, unless they want to keep coming to court for the next couple years.

The main problem of the US and their law is that while all countries believe that if your citizens go somewhere and buy something, they need to check if it's fine with their local law. So if you buy a gun in an online store and your country doesn't allow guns, you will have to take responsibility for it and possibly face a fine and lose the gun.
The US law makes it so that if someone buys a restricted item online, it's the fault of the seller. The seller should have asked where the client is from and be aware of all the US laws and regulations. Tell me this isn't crazy.

The latest case around telegram coin say sth different, it's not enough to just exclude US tax payer

However, the developers have declared that they will still turn on their platform and issue the tokens. What can America do?

Source https://cointelegraph.com/news/ton-community-no-one-can-prevent-the-launch-of-ton

a lot - finance - usd - big banks - powers and networks  - legals - economy - ...

still US is leader here, or do you see that different?

[Harlot]

A lawsuit handled by a US firm, Roche Cyrulnik Freedman, and their defendants are from 11 different countries not counting USA? If this firm even for real? How did they manage to get 42 defendants in 11 countries just to sue this companies? Are they really that desperate for money that now they are scouting people outside of the US just to sue them, I mean outside of the USA most exchanges doesn't even need to have a license to offer up a STO like token in other countries so why are they targeting this? I would understand their lawsuit against TRON but I won't take in consideration the exchanges involved here especially when Binance recently just got back in the US.

[bbc.reporter]

@hv_. Agreed, the American government can do a lot, however, why have they not done anything to the more than 1000 cryptocoins, altcoins, scamcoins, ICO tokens and more?

I reckon a lot might only be few.

[hv_]

@hv_. Agreed, the American government can do a lot, however, why have they not done anything to the more than 1000 cryptocoins, altcoins, scamcoins, ICO tokens and more?

I reckon a lot might only be few.

Ramping up - get them educated,... they do a lot, but they are split quite a lot SEC, CFTC, NY BitLicence, ....

And sure, they need to adjust / collude a bit with EU / ... to make  things happen global. That all takes time and is coming next 1-2 y

[buwaytress]

Funny I missed this bit of news. Reckon it's a lot of butthurt people who bought into token sales across all of them platforms at what they thought were discount prices, and then got ripped up when listing day came. Haven't followed much of the ICO/STO/IEO business since 2018 but all those names almost always lost investors money, even Binance got rid of almost their entire IEO pairs recently, didn't they?

[figmentofmyass]

i have a hard enough time fathoming the USA government being able to collect from bitmex or binance. hiding in africa, the carribean, east asia etc and all their money is cryptocurrency held in encrypted wallets.

so even if they win (i'm not sure it's a slam dunk either) how does this law firm plan to collect civil judgments from crypto-only companies hiding offshore? the whole thing almost seems laughable, but maybe i'm missing something.

[bbc.reporter]

@hv_. Agreed, the American government can do a lot, however, why have they not done anything to the more than 1000 cryptocoins, altcoins, scamcoins, ICO tokens and more?

I reckon a lot might only be few.

Ramping up - get them educated,... they do a lot, but they are split quite a lot SEC, CFTC, NY BitLicence, ....

And sure, they need to adjust / collude a bit with EU / ... to make  things happen global. That all takes time and is coming next 1-2 y

Many people also said that it was coming in the next 1 or 2 years on 2015. However, the next 1 or 2 years saw the biggest pumps in the cryptospace hehehe.

On 2018 - 2019, the SEC begun accepting payment as fees to continue from EOS and other ICO projects. It never came. It would only give power to the SEC to choose which projects they like to continue and which they do not like, however hehehe.

[malevolent]

i have a hard enough time fathoming the USA government being able to collect from bitmex or binance. hiding in africa, the carribean, east asia etc and all their money is cryptocurrency held in encrypted wallets.

so even if they win (i'm not sure it's a slam dunk either) how does this law firm plan to collect civil judgments from crypto-only companies hiding offshore? the whole thing almost seems laughable, but maybe i'm missing something.

If they get whatever jurisdiction they're hiding at to cooperate, I'm sure it would be possible. Bitmex or Binance are still after all trying do the bare minimum to be recognized as legitimate enterprises, they aren't SR or Alphabay, if they face enough pressure they'll pay.

[figmentofmyass]

i have a hard enough time fathoming the USA government being able to collect from bitmex or binance. hiding in africa, the carribean, east asia etc and all their money is cryptocurrency held in encrypted wallets.

so even if they win (i'm not sure it's a slam dunk either) how does this law firm plan to collect civil judgments from crypto-only companies hiding offshore? the whole thing almost seems laughable, but maybe i'm missing something.

If they get whatever jurisdiction they're hiding at to cooperate, I'm sure it would be possible. Bitmex or Binance are still after all trying do the bare minimum to be recognized as legitimate enterprises, they aren't SR or Alphabay, if they face enough pressure they'll pay.

what is the protocol for this in civil cases? mutual legal assistance treaties/agreements are negotiated between the department of state and target countries in regards to criminal matters. even so, i don't think the seychelles (where bitmex and binance are registered) has any such agreement with the USA.

part of me wonders if this is almost purely a bluff on the part of the plaintiffs. if the cost of settling is low enough, the companies may be happy to settle just to avoid bad PR.

[gentlemand]

part of me wonders if this is almost purely a bluff on the part of the plaintiffs. if the cost of settling is low enough, the companies may be happy to settle just to avoid bad PR.

I assumed that was their prime objective, not that I'm qualified to guess shit. I thought it might be the equivalent of patent trolling.

Presumably any sizeable crypto business is hit with frivolous stuff like this on a regular basis, though it gets less publicity. I doubt any of them would want to set any type of precedent by caving to no marks for the sake of a quiet life.