Former SEC Enforcement Co-Director George Canellos Joins the Legal Team of Binance.US

Binance.US is facing 13 counts of allegations from SEC prosecutors. The long charter of legal violations has led to revocation of banking services for the crypto exchange. However, Binance is no stranger to regulatory troubles, such that the firm has maintained its stance to cooperate with the regulators and upgrade its legal defense team.

As per the latest media reports, Binance.US has recently recruited former SEC prosecutor to its legal team.

George Canellos is now appointed as the co-director of the enforcement division of Securities and Exchange Commission. The defense of Binance.US has recruited three other solicitors who served at Milbank LLP. Canellos served as the former chief of Crimes unit at US Attorney Office at the Southern District Court of New York as well.

With the recent changes Binance.US has amplified its chances to face the legal battle against Securities and Exchange Commission. In a surprising turn of events, SEC hit two major cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Coinbase with lawsuits last week.

SEC Rejects Coinbase’s Request to Define Clear Crypto Rules

Coinbase is another major cryptocurrency exchange that is currently facing a SEC lawsuit and security violation allegations. The regulated and public traded exchange platform submitted a request for concise rulemaking from SEC in July 2022.

This year in April, Coinbase took to court to file writ of mandamus to compel Securities and Exchange Commission to issue crypto regulations. In turn court ordered SEC to respond to questions posed in the writ within a week’s time.

SEC officials have responded by waving ignorance about the proper response to Coinbase’s request for rulemaking. However, the regulatory agency has refrained from rejecting compliance altogether while maintaining that the agency should not be assigned a deadline concerning its decisions.

Furthermore, SEC prosecutors claim that the agency is not under obligation to issue periodic reports to Coinbase. At the same time, SEC lawyers called for 120 days period to submit their recommendations concerning the mandamus writ.

Commenting on the response from SEC officials, Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal has maintained that SEC does not intend to issue new rules. In response SEC has maintained on its blog that the statement issued by Gensler does not equate the denial of rulemaking petition by Coinbase.

The agency further maintained that the regulator intends to treat the application submitted by Coinbase as ordinary course. On the other hand, a new video from 2018 concerning Gary Gensler comments has opened another can of worms for the regulatory agency. The video in question surfaced during an event organization by Fidelity and Bloomberg.

It is from a time when SEC chair was working as a professor at MIT and former chairperson of CFTC when he exclaimed that only Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash make up for more than 70% of total crypto market and that he named these specific cryptocurrencies as they are not securities.

On the other end of the spectrum, SEC is also getting bashed by the public on account of regulatory pressure on account of former SEC official, William Hinman’s remarks. The documents containing email correspondence from William Hinman were recently presented in court which disqualifies Ethereum as a non-security.

These incidents have shaken the trust of general public in regulatory agencies and raised questions over personal biases concerning regulatory process.

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