The American arm of Binance is declining to cooperate with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The regulator said in a court filing.
The agency noted that the company had submitted only 220 materials as part of the disclosure process. Moreover, many of them consisted of “illegible screenshots and documents without dates and signatures.”
The SEC also noted that the platform refused to provide key witnesses for testimony.
“The company answered requests for providing relevant messages with categorical objections and refused to provide documents kept in the course of its ordinary activities, claiming that these documents do not exist, only for the SEC later to obtain [them] from other sources,” the statement said.
Furthermore, Binance.US continues to rely on its partner—the custodian service Ceffu, regulators noted. In their view, such actions breach prior agreements between the parties on prohibiting cross-border withdrawals.
On June 5, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao. The commission charged 13 counts, including selling unregistered securities. On June 6, the regulator filed a motion to freeze the digital assets of the U.S. arm of the exchange.
On June 9, users of the platform lost the ability to deposit dollars, which prompted selling by those looking to withdraw funds in fiat. Against this backdrop, the platform displayed a discount in the BTC/USD quotes — the figure reached about $2,200 (7.3%).
On June 17 the SEC and Binance reached a settlement on customer funds in the United States. The platform resumed withdrawals of assets, but the company warned that the situation could change.
In July, journalists reported the departure of a number of Binance’s top executives, including Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann. Around the same time, reports of mass layoffs at the company emerged, with Zhao’s earlier remarks about layoffs being described as FUD.
In early September Binance announced the departure of Gleb Kostarev, head of Eastern Europe, and Vladimir Smerkis, head of the CIS. Both were responsible for the company’s operations in Russia.
Also around that time, it became known of the resignation of Binance.US CEO Brian Schroeder, alongside mass layoffs. Following him, the heads of the legal department Krishna Juvvadi and the risk department Sidney Majali left, according to the WSJ.
As noted in an internal presentation, Binance.US’s growth prospects are limited due to ties to Zhao and the current regulatory environment.