Allegations of Unregistered Securities: Court Rules In Favor Of Bancor
In what was a fresh triumph for the crypto world, Bancor (a liquid Blockchain protocol) has emerged victorious in a New York court case that has been ongoing since early last year. Judge Alvin Hellerstein dismissed the allegation that Bancor was selling more than $150 million value in unregistered securities.
William Zhang was the complainant when the legal proceedings started, and he claimed to have bought 587 BNT tokens at a combined value of $212.50 on September 4, 2019, from a digital exchange out of Singapore known as COSS.
In a twist of development, Timothy C. Holsworth replaced Zhang as the main complainant. The case was for Bancor to be prosecuted based on the U.S. Securities law since its BNT digital coins can be classed as a security. The complainants accused Bancor of providing several untrue announcements and incomplete information that swayed investors to assume that BTT coins can’t be classed as securities.
Why The Dismissal of this Lawsuit?
The file order stated that the complainant doesn’t have enough proof that the defendants contacted him directly or that the defendant’s active solicitations prompted him to buy those securities.
While granting the dismissal motion, the judge said, “Bancor, New York’s site for an office is not best suited for such litigation.” Apart from BProtocol, several other crypto issuers have also been taken to court on a similar basis. Hence, with this ruling, other lawsuits with similar arguments may already know the outcome.
The Judge’s ruling conformed with the Blockchain company’s lawyers’ line of reasoning about the case. Towards the end of last year, legal representatives of BProtocol (Bancor’s parent company) had argued that the most appropriate court to try this case was one that’s not within the country.
Through its head Alex Spiro, the foundation’s lawyers had remarked that the grievance was by someone in Wisconsin purchasing tokens from a Swiss firm through a Singapore exchange. Thus, neither the witnesses nor the defendants can be comfortable with the case being tried in New York, asserting that the location was only convenient for the complainant.
Alex Spiro works with Quinn Emmanuel, a legal entity specializing in high-profile litigation involving Crypto and FinTech companies. The best solution to this jurisdictional nightmare is to use The Hague convention to serve these class-action legal proceedings. Bancor or BProtocol foundation is a firm incorporated under Switzerland’s corporate laws and has branches in Israel, Tel Aviv, Switzerland, and Zug.
Effect of The Court Case On BTT Value
Fortunately, this lawsuit hasn’t affected Bancor’s operations in any significant way. Evidence from Crypto-fees suggests that Bancor is among the top six crypto projects when these crypto projects are evaluated based on their daily protocol profits. Crypto-fees is a platform that monitors the busiest crypto-projects using people’s evaluation as a basis.
Bancor is ranked higher than 0x, Uniswap VI, Synthetix, and Aave on this same list. Apart from recording more than $120 million in annual fees, the protocol reportedly earned over $300,000 in fees within 24 hours. BTT (Bancor’s native token) has surged by 60% in the past week and by more than 2.5% from yesterday until now, trading at $5.70.
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