2 years ago
A caller crypto litigation tracker from commercialized instrumentality steadfast Morrison Cohen LLP shows details of much than 300 progressive and settled tribunal cases since 2013.
Morrison Cohen is simply a New York-based steadfast that caters to ample fiscal institutions, entrepreneurs and early-growth signifier companies, and specializes successful superior markets, concern litigation, existent property and bankruptcy to sanction a few. The institution besides has a cryptocurrency litigation team.
The Morrison Cohen Cryptocurrency Litigation Tracker was published connected May. 3, and contains immoderate lawsuit improvement related to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and people action/private litigation.
The steadfast stated that it volition regularly update the tracker “ to see the cardinal rulings successful these litigations,” and it besides contains a big of “articles, webinars, and podcasts” and regulatory crypto announcements from assorted authorities agencies.
According to the tracker — which is fundamentally a lengthy pdf papers — determination person been astir 17 crypto cases that were either brought earlier the tribunal oregon resolved successful 2022 truthful far.
The SEC, CFTC and DOJ combined relationship for 7 of those, with immoderate precocious illustration cases being the SEC v. the Barksdale siblings, who allegedly conducted a fraudulent archetypal coin offering (ICO) worth $124 million, and the SEC v. integer plus level BlockFi, who agreed to wage a $100 cardinal penalty for failing to registry its crypto lending product.
The astir notable of each however, is the ongoing DOJ v.Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan case. The husband-wife duo are charged with an alleged conspiracy to launder funds relating to the 119,756 Bitcoin (BTC) Bitfinex hack successful 2016. DOJ peculiar agents were capable to seize 94,000 BTC astir the clip of arrests successful February.
There whitethorn besides beryllium plentifulness much successful the works this year, considering the SEC announced this week that it volition beryllium upping the headcount of its enforcement-focused “Crypto Assets & Cyber Unit” to 50 dedicated positions.
Today we announced that we’re bolstering the portion liable for protecting investors successful crypto markets & from cyber-related threats. The recently renamed Crypto Assets & Cyber Unit successful the Division of Enforcement volition turn to 50 dedicated positions.
— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) May 3, 2022Related: Has New York State gone astray successful its pursuit of crypto fraud?
The bulk of enactment has been implicit successful the people action/private arena however, with SafeMoon attracting the astir attraction aft the squad was slapped with a class-action suit implicit an alleged pump and dump scheme.
The people enactment claims the task recruited galore celebrities to gully successful investors with allegedly misleading information, with musicians specified arsenic Nick Carter, Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty and YouTubers Jake Paul and Ben Phillips each said to person promoted the BNB Chain-based token.
A unsocial lawsuit that seems to person mostly flown nether the radar is the Halston Thayer v. Matt Furie, Chain/Saw LL, and PegzDAO from March.
The trio — which includes Furie, the archetypal creator of the beloved Pepe the Frog meme — is accused of fraudulent inducement, aft allegedly selling a one-of-one NFT that tanked successful worth pursuing an identical NFT driblet that was released for free.
“Plaintiff alleges that defendants fraudulently misrepresented the worth of a Pepe the Frog NFT. Plaintiff paid $537,084 for a Pepe the Frog NFT created by Furie and sold done PegzDAO. A fewer weeks aft the sale, PegzDAO released 46 identical NFTs for free, which allegedly reduced the worth of Plaintiff’s NFT,“ Morrison Cohen wrote.
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