Binance, a prominent global cryptocurrency exchange, filed for a protective court order against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday. This move follows the said authority’s enquiry into the business dealings of BAM Trading, Binance’s operator, and the deposition of four BAM employees, which includes the chief executive and chief financial officer.
Binance seeks to curb SEC’s hunt for “fraud”
BAM stated that the regulator’s requests for information were overly “broad” and “unduly burdensome”. In the motion for the protective order, the company stated:
The Consent Order authorized “limited expedited discovery” on a narrow set of topics—namely, the custody, security, and availability of BAM customer assets. Instead of seeking “limited” discovery, the SEC has spent the past 45 days serving incredibly overbroad and unreasonable discovery requests that seek, on their face, every single document in BAM’s possession related to customer assets.
BAM asserted it already complied with the “limited discovery” requests and supplied sufficient information to satisfy that demand. Among other things, its motion wants SEC to cease the depositions of the BAM employees.
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In June of this year, SEC sued Binance, and its CEO Changpeng Zhao for allegedly running fraudulent activities on its platform. SEC labelled the cryptocurrency exchange as a “web of deception” and brought 13 charges against it. These included the inflation of trading volumes, diversion of client funds, and prohibiting U.S. customers access to the platform.
SEC opposed this new motion, while Binance maintained the regulator has not found any proof to date that customer assets were ill-used.
