US Securities and Exchange Commission wins further lawsuit against crypto-companies
After several years of litigation with the US regulatory authorities, the Blockvest crypto project has now been finally banned.
The SEC is seeking a permanent ban, repayment of illegally obtained funds and “fines”, according to a court document issued on Thursday. With the ruling, this demand has now been granted in accordance with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Both the crypto project Blockvest and Bitcoin Evolution founder Reginald Buddy Ringgold III, who also calls himself Rasool Abdul Rahim El, are the defendants in this case.
The SEC first intervened against Blockvest in October 2018 when the company sought to sell a proprietary crypto token. Such an “Initial Coin Offering” (ICO) was a popular method of raising capital in the crypto industry at the time. Over the next two years, a legal dispute arose between the two sides, which has now ended with the judgement of the previous day.
Nonetheless, the ICO was carried out and its illegality
The reason for the interim injunction with which the SEC intervened against the then ICO, and the basis of the ongoing legal dispute, is that in the opinion of the authorities, both Blockvest and Ringgold are alleged to have deliberately acted illegally. Nonetheless, the ICO was carried out and its illegality was deliberately covered up by Ringgold falsely claiming to have registered the token sale with the SEC:
“The defendants pretended that the Initial Coin Offering was ‘registered’ with the SEC and ‘authorised’ by the SEC, using the SEC logo for this deception”.
In addition, the defendants had falsely claimed that the ICO was authorised by the US Futures and Options Trading Commission (CFTC) and the US Futures Association (NFA).
In addition, the latest court document also mentions other charges, for example
“The invention of a fictitious regulatory body called the Blockchain Exchange Commission (BEC), including its own fake logo, seal and regulatory mandate, all of which resemble the SEC’s logo, seal and regulatory mandate”.
As a result of the ruling, Blockvest and Ringgold are subject to various penalties, including, but not limited to, damages to the investors in the token sale and fines totaling $696,097.90. In addition, various restrictions and prohibitions apply to entrepreneurs and founders with immediate effect.