Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, is being sued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). According to CFTC’s suit filed in federal court in Chicago, Binance broke U.S. trading and derivatives rules while failing to register with the agency despite being required to do so.
The suit also called Binance’s efforts to comply with U.S. laws and guidance a “sham.”
“The defendants’ own emails and chats reflect that Binance’s compliance efforts have been a sham and Binance deliberately chose – over and over – to place profits over following the law,” CFTC said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Besides Binance, the suit also named crypto exchange’s CEO Changpeng Zhao and Chief Compliance Officer Samuel Lim as defendants. CFTC alleges that Zhao, Lim, and other company executives didn’t put enough effort into supervising the platform while actively instructing its customers to break U.S. laws.
Zhao issued a statement in which he called the suit and CFTC’s actions “unexpected and disappointing.”
“Upon an initial review, the complaint appears to contain an incomplete recitation of facts, and we do not agree with the characterization of many of the issues alleged in the complaint,” Zhao said.
The suit has caused movement in the crypto market, dropping Bitcoin to $26,694 at one point on Tuesday. Other major cryptocurrencies, like Ethereum, have also seen a loss in value.