Crypto Exchange And The Nigerian Court.

[Supreme Donvic]

as cryptocurrency is becoming more popular in Nigeria, cases of exchange freezing people's account, locking withdrawal, or holding their funds without clear explanation, is now too many.
‎some Nigeria's citizens believe that the exchange owns the platform, and for that reason they can do anything they like. Others believe that once exchange collect  your money unlawfully you have the right to seek justice.
‎
‎However one thing we all need to understand is that, some of this exchange don't have physical office in Nigeria. some of them are registered in foreign countries.
‎but the good news is that if you win them in court, the court will force them to compile with the court ruling or stop operation in Nigeria.
‎
‎it is very much possible to sue an exchange in Nigeria if they freeze your account or lock your withdrawal unlawfully.
‎and you can get compensated by the exchange but whether you will actually succeed depends on the facts of your case.
‎Some of the key factors include:
‎
‎Who the exchange is. if that particular exchange was legally licensed to operate in Nigeria, to enforce judgement will be very simple but if is not it will be a little bit difficult.

‎The reason for the lawsuit. you need to actually prove that the exchange breached there contract with you and was negligent that was why you lost your money.

‎The exchange's Terms of Service. These terms can affect where and how you can bring a claim.
‎
‎Your evidence. you must keep all transaction records, blockchain data, emails, support tickets, screenshots, and any notices from the exchange can all be important.
‎because without good evidence you can't win.

[SatoPrincess]

This is a medicine after death approach. I’d rather be proactive, imo the most important thing to note is that you should only use reputable exchanges. Secondly, do not leave your coins on exchange, always move them to non-custodial wallets.

[Amphenomenon]

-Snip-

The fact remains that while one can legally try to fight if they are treated unfairly by exchanges it's still very difficult and may profit nothing  but more lost since our government are not totally supportive or are propagating something different ignoring the protections of citizens to rather focus on fining exchanges for something not worth it or questionable.

Patricia harmed a lot of Nigerians but even until now I don't think many of the customers/victims have gotten compensation.

[Curious T]

All these are for a working system, not like a system like Nigeria. And even in a working system, it's difficult. There are companies in Nigeria that ordinary people cannot even win a case against, let alone foreign companies. Except you are someone with a lot of backing and money, this is most likely a waste of time. The way I see it, you have a better chance of convincing the exchange that you did nothing wrong and showing them evidence (that's if they are genuine) than winning them and getting compensation in a Nigerian court as an ordinary citizen. You can try to reduce the risk by not keeping your money on exchanges. This doesn't take away the risk entirely if you still trade on those platforms because they can stop you from withdrawing, but it's better than leaving a big sum of your money on the exchange.

[Marvelockg]

‎Your evidence. you must keep all transaction records, blockchain data, emails, support tickets, screenshots, and any notices from the exchange can all be important.
‎because without good evidence you can't win.

The Nigerian justice system is not even helping well in local matters not to talk about dealing with exchanges that are operating in the country without accepting to be regulated in the slightest form. one thing that is unfortunate in the crypto space that we are getting used to is that once things goes wrong, chances of a recovery is always very slim. instead of having issues with an exchange that will take you to a nigeran court, try everything within your power for such situation to not arise. that will always be far better than dealing with the Nigerian court.

[Hypnotizer]

as cryptocurrency is becoming more popular in Nigeria, cases of exchange freezing people's account, locking withdrawal, or holding their funds without clear explanation, is now too many.
‎some Nigeria's citizens believe that the exchange owns the platform, and for that reason they can do anything they like. Others believe that once exchange collect  your money unlawfully you have the right to seek justice.
‎

You can as well avoid all these by not keeping your money in the exchange, you should keep your coins in your wallet and custody it yourself and only use the exchange for its purpose, which is to exchange your coins. But if it so happens that you got your coins frozen on an exchange, then you can use this file a complaint report to some “company that helps with that” instead of going to a Nigerian court..

Instead of going through all the stress of the Nigerian court, spending money and not yielding  any result.. which is probably what will happen, you should rather file a complaint to some company that might help you recover your account.

This information from a new member here who said he had the same issue might help..

My Bybit account was suspended for about two months with around $3,400 on it. I tried working with support, but honestly it didn't get me anywhere. After the first month my emails were either unanswered or I just kept getting the same generic responses, so I was starting to think I'd never get access back.

Eventually I came across a company called KarCrypto that helps with frozen crypto accounts. They reviewed my case, helped me prepare everything that was needed, and after they got involved the account was unlocked in about 4 days.

I know every case is different, so I'm not saying they'll be able to solve every situation. I just wanted to share what ended up working for me because I remember searching this forum for similar experiences when I was stuck.

[Tonimez]

The Nigerian legal system can not be trusted in this case because there are many questions you may not be able to answer. The best thing you can do is to ensure you read and understand the terms and conditions of any Exchange you want to make use of. In the case of any ambiguity, do not send your coins until you are cleared. Most of these redress suits doesn't work because before any exchange decides to play games, they must have included a clause that you didn't rightly understand but you clicked "I understand" and "Continue". This would be the point they will hold you down even when you should be right.

Just play safe and just like Satoprincess said, you can stop saving your coins in exchanges and do more Non custodial wallets to own full control of your coins and avoid such occurrence because most of these evidences you would bring might contain clauses you could not explain but accented to it.

[Cossyblack]

Bro it is still within your constitutional right to suit any exchange that you think have unlawfully breached your contract with them.if you have a professional lawyer who is very influencial in the country that has a deep connection with politicians or has friends outside the country you probably might win the case in court. The only challenge you will face is that you are going to spend a lot of money to win the case. To get Justice in Nigeria is expensive especially since the exchange has money, they can hired the best SANs in the country to defend them in court. So if you don't have millions of Naira to fight this case then I will advise you not to proceed any further because you can't win.

[New Judgement]

I bet you that no Nigerian living in this country will ever attempt to go through this process. You know how this country is, the government and banks are looking for who’s doing crypto in this country so they can go after them. So I doubt any Nigerian residing in this country would ever want to draw such public attention to himself. So the best way is to avoid doing whatever that will warrant and exchange to lock or withhold your money.

[Audrey Simmons]

‎Your evidence. you must keep all transaction records, blockchain data, emails, support tickets, screenshots, and any notices from the exchange can all be important.
‎because without good evidence you can't win.

Already, the blockchain stores your information, that's not the main deal. One needs to have the necessary resource to pursue the case, and it has to be a very reasonable amount on the line before the court will get involved.

Anyone not ready to go through this process has to stick with using crypto exchanges the way they ought to be used.

[Doan9269]

Another reason why we must be very careful this time around is the moment I noticed that Nigeria is inviting more crypto exchanges and other platforms to come and establish their business in Nigeria under a design framework they are providing for them, and some have already been identified under their regulations and are operating under their approval shows that things will definitely go wrong for many crypto users in Nigeria, because government can easily apprehend anyone that is not careful of which exchange to use in holding their assets.

[Sammye3]

~snip

You should understand the popular saying "not your keys, not your coins" in situations like this because the exchange secure your assets on your behalf and grant you partial security.

There could be a few reasons why an exchange would take such actions, which are:
1. Suspicious account activity.
2. Violation of exchange's ToS
3. Request for legal requirements and so on.

So before making an attempt to sue an exchange, there should be a proper background check to make sure none of these conditions and more was not violated before the exchange took action.

[Marykeller]

I bet you that no Nigerian living in this country will ever attempt to go through this process. You know how this country is, the government and banks are looking for who’s doing crypto in this country so they can go after them. So I doubt any Nigerian residing in this country would ever want to draw such public attention to himself. So the best way is to avoid doing whatever that will warrant and exchange to lock or withhold your money.

Because of the reason you have given, that's why we, as Nigerians, hardly fight for our rights, because those who will call the leaders have turned things around so that they will not be in our favor(the masses).

As we have seen, the court of law is no longer the last hope of the common man. The politicians have taken over the three arms of the government to dance to their tune with corrupt practices. Our San. and barrister then become money minded to be ready to sell off the truth for the highest bidder