Binance Files Motion to Dismiss SEC’s Lawsuit

1 week ago 8

The leadership of Binance has filed a motion against a lawsuit brought by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) nearly a year ago.

Binance, a top-ranked crypto exchange known for its responsive trading services for various types of crypto investors, faced this suit from the SEC in June 2023. The charges included allegations of unregistered securities offerings. The lawsuit was accompanied by other actions from U.S. regulatory authorities. Binance has since settled some charges imposed by other bodies and succeeded in having certain SEC charges dropped.

On November 4, 2024, lawyers representing Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) filed a motion to dismiss the SEC’s lawsuit. The motion claims that the SEC’s amended complaint pays “lip service” to a prior court ruling that established crypto assets as not inherently securities. However, the SEC, according to Binance, fails to accept this ruling’s conclusion — that secondary market resales of crypto assets, long after their initial distribution, do not constitute securities transactions.

In essence, Binance argued that the SEC lacks clear regulatory guidelines on crypto and criticised the agency for its “arbitrary” decisions on classifying digital asset transactions as securities transactions.

Binance and its former CEO Zhao Changpeng's legal team filed a motion to the U.S. SEC to dismiss the SEC's amended lawsuit, claiming that the SEC lacks clear regulatory standards for crypto assets and criticizing its "arbitrary" decision on which crypto transactions are…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) November 5, 2024

It will be interesting to observe whether this motion leads to a favourable outcome for Binance.

In September of this year, former Binance CEO CZ was released from jail after serving two months on charges related to offering crypto services in the U.S. without registration with the appropriate regulatory authorities.