State and provincial securities regulators across the US and Canada have been actively policing the marketplace for ICOs and security token offerings, supplementing efforts at the federal level undertaken by the SEC. Colorado and North Dakota are among the latest states to announce enforcement actions in the crypto space.
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SEC and CFTC Charge a Bitcoin-Funded International Securities Dealer
On September 27, 2018, the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) charged an international securities dealer with illegally offering and selling to U.S. investors security-based swaps funded with bitcoins and related violations of the Commodities Exchange Act. The broker, 1pool Ltd., a.k.a. 1Broker, and its CEO, Patrick Brunner, were both named in the complaint filed by the SEC with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
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New York Attorney General Reports on Crypto Exchanges
A new report from the New York Attorney General summarizes the findings of its recent Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative. The NYAG concluded that crypto trading platforms vary significantly in their risk management strategies and in the ways they fulfill customer responsibilities.
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A Day of Firsts
On September 11, 2018, capital markets regulators announced a series of cases that are the first of their kind in the digital assets space.
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NASAA Updates Status of “Operation Cryptosweep”
On August 28, 2018, the North American Securities Administrators Association published a press release with an update on the progress of the coordinated enforcement sweep of the ICO market dubbed “Operation Cryptosweep.”
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SEC Brings Enforcement Case Involving “Airdrop” of Securities
A recent settled SEC enforcement action against an ICO issuer and its promoter calls into question the viability of the “airdrop” model of distributing digital tokens to investors. Whether such a distribution model runs afoul of the federal securities laws has been the subject of much debate in recent months, and the SEC’s case provides additional insight into their analysis of the issue.
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Switzerland Announces ICO Enforcement Action
In a terse press release issued July 26, 2018, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”) announced that it has launched enforcement proceedings against an ICO issuer based on evidence that the company may have “breached financial market law.” According to FINMA, the proceedings focus in particular on possible breaches of Swiss banking law resulting from the potentially unauthorized acceptance of public deposits. FINMA noted that, in the context of its ICO, the subject company “accepted funds amounting to approximately one hundred million francs from more than 30,000 investors in return for issuing EVN tokens in a bond-like form.”
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U.S. District Court Reaffirms CFTC’s Authority over Cryptocurrency Fraud
On July 12, 2018, a federal judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York reaffirmed its view that cryptocurrency fraud is subject to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s anti-fraud and anti-manipulation enforcement authority.
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Texas Shuts Down Offering of Interests in Cryptocurrency Mining Businesses
On July 11, 2018, in an emergency cease and desist order, the Texas securities commissioner took action against several individuals and affiliated companies based in Utah to halt the offering of unregistered cryptocurrency mining investments to Texas residents.
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AML and Sanctions Compliance Issues Facing Cryptocurrency Companies
In an article written by Hunton Andrews Kurth lawyers in Crowdfund Insider, Richard Garabedian and Shaswat Das discuss the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s enforcement actions and related compliance issues. This blog contains a link to the full article.
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