The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will close one of its regional offices on Sunday
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will close one of its 11 regional offices after a federal judge ordered the regulator to pay nearly $1.8 million in attorney and filing fees. under sequestration.
In a June 4 notice, the SEC announced that it would close its Salt Lake regional office in 2024, one of eleven regional offices nationwide. The committee said the closure was due to “significant attrition” within the office and that it was considering moving operations to Denver.
The announcement came about a week after Judge Robert Shelby dismissed the SEC’s civil lawsuit against Digital Licensing, a company that does business as DEBT Box. He also signed an order requiring the SEC to pay approximately $1 million for attorneys’ fees and costs and $750,000 for receiver’s fees and costs.
The SEC filed suit against DEBT Box in July 2023, alleging that the company committed an illegal $50 million cryptocurrency scheme. However, in March, Judge Shelby found that the SEC “behaved in bad faith” regarding a temporary restraining order to freeze DEBT Box’s assets. The judge ordered sanctions against the SEC, requiring the regulator to cover “all attorneys’ fees and costs resulting from the reckless entry.” on the one hand satisfaction.”
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Two SEC attorneys – based in the Salt Lake City regional office – reportedly resigned over the handling of the case. It is unclear whether their departure contributed to the “significant attrition” cited by the committee. Cointelegraph contacted DEBT Box but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
“Attrition,” Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said in a June 4 article. “Is this what we call unprecedented misrepresentations and bad faith that warrants unprecedented sanctions from a federal judge?
The Commission is taking ongoing enforcement actions against several cryptocurrency companies, including Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and Ripple. In May, lawyers for Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon announced that they had reached a tentative settlement in their case with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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