The Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Binance with a series of charges, as the crypto giant continues to face growing regulatory pressures in the US.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Binance, co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao as well as the operator of its US exchange over 13 different charges.
According to an SEC complaint filed in a federal court in Washington DC, the charges include allegations of artificially inflated trading volumes, diverted customer funds, failure to restrict US customer access, avoidance of US federal securities law via the creation of a separate entity and more.
«We allege that Zhao and Binance entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law,» said SEC chair Gary Gensler in a statement.
Binance Response
In response, Binance said it would defend its platform «vigorously» and that the SEC's latest move was «just another example of the Commission’s misguided and conscious refusal to provide much-needed clarity and guidance to the digital asset industry».
«It seems based on these developments that the SEC’s goal here was never to protect investors. The SEC’s real intent here, instead, appears to be to make headlines,» Binance said in a blog post.
The SEC complaint follows the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) move in March to sue Binance for operating an «illegal» exchange and a «sham» compliance program.
