{"id":85574,"date":"2023-08-11T01:48:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T05:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=85574"},"modified":"2023-08-11T01:51:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-11T05:51:17","slug":"crypto-asset-trading-platform-bittrex-settles-sec-charges-for-operating-an-unregistered-exchange-broker-and-clearing-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/08\/2023\/crypto-asset-trading-platform-bittrex-settles-sec-charges-for-operating-an-unregistered-exchange-broker-and-clearing-agency.html","title":{"rendered":"Crypto Asset Trading Platform Bittrex Settles SEC Charges for Operating an Unregistered Exchange, Broker, and Clearing Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has just announced that crypto asset trading platform <strong>Bittrex Inc<\/strong>. and its co-founder and former CEO, <strong>William Shihara,<\/strong> agreed to settle charges that they operated an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency. Bittrex Inc.\u2019s foreign affiliate, Bittrex Global GmbH, also agreed to settle charges that it failed to register as a national securities exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As alleged in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/news\/press-release\/2023-78\">SEC\u2019s complaint<\/a> filed on April 17, 2023 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Bittrex acted as an unregistered broker, exchange, and clearing agency by providing services to U.S. investors in connection with crypto assets that the SEC\u2019s complaint alleges were offered and sold as securities. The complaint further alleges that Bittrex and Shihara, who was the company\u2019s CEO from 2014 to 2019, directed issuers who sought to have their crypto assets made available for trading on Bittrex\u2019s platform to first delete from public channels certain \u201cproblematic statements\u201d that Shihara believed would lead a regulator, such as the SEC, to investigate whether the crypto asset was offered and sold as a security. As part of the settlement, the defendants neither admit nor deny the SEC\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<strong><em>For years, Bittrex worked with token issuers to &#8216;scrub&#8217; their online statements of any indicia that they were investment contracts\u2014all in an effort to evade the federal securities laws. They failed,\u201d said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC\u2019s Division of Enforcement. \u201cToday\u2019s settlement makes clear that you cannot escape liability by simply changing labels or altering descriptions because what matters is the economic realities of those offerings. I am grateful to the SEC staff for aggressively pursuing non-compliance in the crypto industry, resolving this matter, and bringing additional relief to harmed investors.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of the settlement, which is subject to court approval, the defendants consented to entry of final judgments that permanently enjoin Bittrex and Shihara from violating Sections 5, 15(a), and 17A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and enjoin Bittrex Global from violating Section 5 of the same Act. In addition, Bittrex and Bittrex Global agreed to pay, on a joint and several basis, disgorgement of <strong>$14.4 million<\/strong>, prejudgment interest of <strong>$4 million<\/strong>, and a civil penalty of <strong>$5.6 million<\/strong>, for a total monetary payment of $24 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has just announced that crypto asset trading platform Bittrex Inc. and its co-founder and former CEO, William Shihara, agreed to settle charges that they operated an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048,16047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news","category-insider-trading-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85575,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85574\/revisions\/85575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}