The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has agreed to a settlement with cryptocurrency trading platform Bittrex and its co-founder and former CEO William Shihara, for having operated an unregistered exchange. According to an Aug. 10 regulatory filing, Bittrex and Bittrex Global will pay the federal regulator a combined $24 million in amounts of $14.4 million in disgorgement, $4 million in prejudgment interest, and $5.6 million in civil penalties in response to the legal issue. The outcome of the settlement is still subject to court review. In accordance with the complaint issued in April, the SEC enforced a separate action that dismissed the case against Bittrex Global for their “operation of a single shared order book along with Bittrex”. Gurbir Grewal, the regulator’s enforcement director, shared his point of view regarding the SEC’s account, noting that issuers of securities tokens are unsuccesful in evading the federally appointed securities laws by masksing disclosure documents. “Today’s settlement renders it clear that you must answer to your consequential economic involvements even if they fall short of verbal descriptions and labels put forward in order to avoid securities laws,” said Grewal.
