The federal judge ordered the Securities and Exchange Commission and Binance lawyers to keep negotiating about limits on the company, reporting back to her by Thursday.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal judge overseeing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's case against Binance and Binance.US declined to order a temporary restraining order freezing the U.S. trading platform's assets.
That would allow the U.S. arm of the company to continue doing business while hashing out restrictions with the regulator.
If the two sides can agree on limits, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, of the D.C. District Court, said “there’s absolutely no need” for a restraining order. In the meantime, the judge ordered Binance.US to provide a list of its business expenses to the court, and ordered the parties to continue negotiating. A status update is due by close of business Thursday.
In a packed Washington courtroom, the judge hammered SEC attorneys about their motion to freeze all of the company's assets until it could prove that no one from Binance's global platform, including Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, had access to its private keys.
At times, the judge seemed frustrated by the responses she was hearing when asking whether any Binance.US customer funds had actually left the U.S., after multiple SEC attorneys said they were mainly concerned about the fact that Binance's global platform controlled enough private key shards to move funds.
"I want to know if it's happening or not," she said. "It's stunning that I've asked each of you this."
Sticking point
Earlier in the day, the judge hinted she may have been inclined to grant some sort of restriction on Binance's access to Binance.US assets but not a full restraining order, ordering the companies to reconcile their proposed restrictions and ordering the SEC to contrast what it wanted with what the companies proposed in lieu of the restraining order itself.
Jennifer Farer, an SEC lawyer, told the judge Tuesday, “We are open to the business continuing to operate.”
And representatives of Binance.US said they mainly wanted to be allowed normal operating expenses and that they were “not willing to accept the death penalty” represented by a total asset freeze.
Farer said Binance.US had constantly changed its story about how crypto assets and funds were held, from Binance.US telling the SEC that it had an agreement with Binance to saying the agreement was not operational to saying the non-operational agreement had been suspended.
Source via Coindesk