SEC v Binance. It's hard to keep up.
This is what the Securities and Exchange Commission said:
"
The Securities and Exchange Commission today secured emergency relief in which the all the defendants in its litigation against Binance Holdings Limited, BAM Management US Holdings Inc., BAM Trading Services Inc., and Changpeng Zhao agreed to repatriate to the United States assets held for the benefit of customers of the Binance.US crypto trading platform. The order from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia also prohibits defendants BAM Trading Services Inc. and BAM Management US Holdings, Inc. (together, “BAM”) from spending corporate assets other than in the ordinary course of business."
So, the assets are protected by agreement but not by a freezing order which is what the USA tried to impose.
But, just as the SEC has trouble with the concept of "charges" (it actually sues not charges) it also seems to have trouble with the concept of allegations: "“Given that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have control of the platforms’ customers’ assets and have been able to commingle customer assets or divert customer assets as they please, as we have alleged, these prohibitions are essential to protecting investor assets,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement."
Grewal seems satisfied that allegations are themselves proof.
The agreed Order,
(1) requires all of the defendants to repatriate to the United States assets held for the benefit of BAM’s U.S. customers;
(2) requires BAM to maintain U.S. customer assets in the United States for the duration of the litigation and to facilitate customer withdrawals;
(3) expressly prohibits BAM from transferring any assets or funds, or from providing control over such assets or funds, to co-defendants Binance Holdings Limited, Changpeng Zhao, or their affiliates;
(4) restricts BAM from spending assets or funds except for ordinary course business expenses and requires BAM to provide the SEC with oversight over such expenses;
(5) prohibits all of the defendants from destroying records;
(6) requires all of the defendants to submit expedited sworn accounting of certain assets to the SEC; and
(7) requires all of the defendants to submit to expedited discovery by the SEC on the custody and security of customer assets."
7 doesn't make sense: why are the defendants submitting to discovery "by" the SEC. Surely this is discovery in the proceedings which is "to" the SEC. Or it's allowing inspection by the SEC.
The speed with which the situation changes for Binance in the USA is compounded by announcements that it will reduce its activity in Australia and withdraw from the Netherlands.
So far it's not clear exactly why Binance is on the naughty step in so many countries except that it was ahead of the pack and therefore became a lightning rod for regulatory action when regulators, eventually, developed policies and decided to apply them retrospectively.
Binance had made assumptions, a la Uber, that turned out to not be what regulators, years later, decided they wanted. Binance is far from the only case around in similar circumstances but its near-global expansion plans have created an edifice that some want to control and others want to bring down.

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