Hires a Former DOJ Prosecutor (Report)

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange – Binance – has reportedly recruited M. Kendall Day – a former prosecutor at the US Department of Justice. His main duty will be to represent the firm in the legal battle against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The agency waged war on Binance earlier this month, accusing it of violating several rules. According to one of the allegations, the exchange offered services with unregistered securities, such as the native token of the platform BNB and the stablecoin BUSD. 

Getting Ready for the Fight

As reported by recent Bloomberg, Day will appear in the SEC case as counsel for Binance. His vast experience includes 15 years at the Department of Justice, where he served as a white-collar prosecutor and later rose to an Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG).

Day was in charge of the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section and had responsibility for about 200 prosecutors and other experts. He has also supervised high-profile cases and investigations related to corporate and financial misconduct allegations.

Interestingly, now he will have to stand on the opposite corner. The SEC filed a lawsuit at the beginning of the month, alleging Binance, CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), and Binance US of breaching several rules. 

For one, it maintained that the company and its American subsidiary operated “unregistered national securities exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearing agencies.” 

Binance has also provided access to tokens deemed unregistered securities by the Commission, including BNB and BUSD. 

“Through thirteen charges, we allege that Zhao and Binance entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

For his part, Zhao remained unfazed by the threat, posting his signature number “4” on Twitter. The latter has turned into an indication for followers to ignore “fake news” and negative information that is spread only to harm the company. 

Coinbase is Another Target

Apart from Binance, the SEC has also filed a lawsuit against the US-based crypto exchange Coinbase. Similar to the aforementioned case, the watchdog accused the Brian Armstrong-spearheaded platform of offering trading services with unlicensed securities such as the well-known digital assets SOL, MATIC, ADA, FIL, SAND, AXS, and more.

CEO Armstrong said Coinbase would be “proud” to represent the sector in the SEC legal fight, adding that it could “finally get some clarity around crypto rules.”

“We’ll get the job done. In the meantime, let’s all keep moving forward and building as an industry. America will get this right in the end,” he concluded.