As per the latest reports, law firm Roche Freedman has filed 11 lawsuits against seven cryptocurrency firms. The lawsuits were filed in a New York federal court on 3rd April. Interestingly, Roche Freedman is also representing late Dave Kleiman against self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig White.
Seven Cryptocurrency companies under the scanner
The coordinated series of lawsuits claim that these firms have issued unregistered security tokens that violate exchange and broker-dealer registration requirements, and also the violation of U.S. federal and state securities laws. The lawsuits named several prominent names in the crypto industry including Binance, Civic, BProtocol, Status, Block.one, KayDex, Quantstamp, BiBox, TRON Foundation, KuCoin, HDR Global Trading. Furthermore, the application has also dragged in several big names like Brendan Blumer, Dan Larimer, Vinny Lingham, and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.
According to the lawsuits filed by Roche Freedman, he tokens which violate the norms include – Bibox Token (BIX), Eos (EOS), Bancor (BNT), Status (SNT), Quantstamp (QSP), Kyber Network (KNC), Tron (TRX), Funfair (FUN), Icon (ICX), OmiseGO (OMG), ETHLend (LEND), Aelf (ELF), TomoChain (TOMO) and Civic (CVC).
Proceedings amid COVID-19
It is being speculated that the court proceedings against the accused might specifically be delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak., especially for parties based outside of the US.
It seems that the jurisdiction rules might make it complicated for non-U.S. defendants and the applicability of arbitration clauses will also be something to look out for.