Binance Holdings Ltd., its founder Changpeng Zhao and the crypto exchange’s former Chief Compliance Officer Samuel Lim plan to seek the dismissal of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission lawsuit.
(Bloomberg) — Binance Holdings Ltd., its founder Changpeng Zhao and the crypto exchange’s former Chief Compliance Officer Samuel Lim plan to seek the dismissal of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission lawsuit.
The response to the CFTC complaint is due July 27 and the defendants intend to submit motions to dismiss, according to a court filing on Monday. They also sought permission to exceed a 15-page limit on supporting briefs, citing the complexity of the case and the number of arguments they anticipate making.
The CFTC in March alleged that Binance and CEO Zhao, also known as CZ, routinely broke US derivatives rules as the firm grew to be the world’s largest digital-asset trading platform.
Binance should have registered with the agency years ago and continues to violate the CFTC’s rules, the regulator said at the time. The crypto platform previously described the CFTC lawsuit as “unexpected and disappointing.”
The US Securities & Exchange Commission last month accused Binance and Zhao of mishandling customer funds, misleading investors and regulators, and breaking securities rules. Binance has said that it intends to defend its platform “vigorously.”
Binance faces a web of regulatory probes around the world as well as a decline in its market share of spot digital-asset trading volumes.
Earlier in July, billionaire Zhao sought to counter concerns about the platform’s outlook following the exits of executives who had been helping the company navigate a widening regulatory crisis.
BNB, the native token of Binance, fell about 2% as of 9:08 a.m. in Singapore on Tuesday to trade at around $238. BNB has shed some 2.5% this year, compared with a gain of 45% in a gauge of the biggest 100 tokens. The success of BNB and Binance are often seen as intertwined.
–With assistance from Suvashree Ghosh.
(Updates with more from the court filing in the second paragraph.)
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