Lawyers for the crypto exchange said the SEC’s requests for documents and depositions are overly broad and beyond the scope of the consent order.
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Posted September 12, 2023 at 6:20 am EST.
Binance.US, the U.S.-based subsidiary of crypto exchange Binance, has opposed a motion from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for additional documents in a lawsuit filed by the regulator alleging the crypto exchange violated securities laws.
In court documents filed on Sept. 12, Binance.US’ lawyers argued that the SEC’s requests for documents were “overly broad, unduly burdensome” and “beyond the scope of the consent order.”
“Other than the SEC’s suggestions that something untoward must be going on, there is neither any evidence nor any indication that critical information relative to the security of customer assets is somehow being hidden or obfuscated or, more importantly, that assets can be or have been diverted,” said the lawyers.
They further claimed that several of the categories of documents that the SEC is seeking have either already been produced, or do not exist.
Through the four months of expedited discovery that Binance.US has fulfilled its obligations on, the regulator has “repeatedly acknowledged” that after a multi-year investigation, it has no evidence that customer funds were misused in any way, the lawyers said.
Earlier this year, the SEC alleged that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and Guangying ‘Helina’ Chen, a Binance executive that is a signatory on several of the exchange’s bank accounts despite holding no official title at the exchange, received billions of dollars’ worth of customer funds through their holding company.
In a June court hearing, a judge repeatedly asked the SEC for evidence that U.S. money had been moving out of the exchange, but lawyers for the regulator conceded that they were “not seeing any money flows outside of the United States.”
Despite the proceedings in court, the SEC put out a press release shortly after which suggested that Binance.US’ customer assets were in danger.
Although it has transitioned into a “crypto-only” exchange, Binance.US still saw $23 million worth of trading volume over the last day, while its parent company Binance remains the world’s largest crypto exchange with a daily trading volume of $6.4 billion.
