A federal choose has authorised a timeline for the court docket to contemplate the deserves of the lawsuit filed by software program agency Consensys in opposition to the US Securities and Change Fee (SEC) and its commissioners.
In a July 1 submitting within the US District Court docket for the Northern District of Texas, Choose Reed O’Connor established deadlines requiring SEC and Consensys legal professionals to file opening and opposition briefs by September and November, respectively.
Moreover, the choose granted the SEC a 28-day extension to reply to the criticism.
Timeline
Based on the timeline, all 5 SEC commissioners and the regulator should file their solutions by July 29, with reply briefs due by Nov. 26.
Consensys senior counsel and director of world regulatory issues Invoice Hughes stated in a July 2 social media publish that he expects a ruling on the case round December. He harkened to a Christmas music, writing:
“It’s starting to look lots like Christmas.”
Consensys filed its lawsuit in opposition to the SEC in April, alleging the regulator was being “illegal” by attempting to claim management over the “way forward for crypto” by enforcement actions aimed toward regulating Ethereum (ETH) as a safety.
In June, Consensys reported that the SEC had ended its investigation into ETH. Nevertheless, the SEC subsequently filed its personal lawsuit, alleging that Consensys had been working as an unregistered dealer.
SEC authority
Authorized specialists within the crypto sector are intently monitoring the civil case as a consequence of its potential implications for the SEC’s regulatory authority. The watchdog is presently engaged in a number of pending lawsuits in opposition to different crypto corporations, together with Coinbase, Binance, and Ripple Labs.
Commissioner Mark Uyeda, additionally named within the Consensys lawsuit, described the SEC’s strategy to crypto regulation as “problematic” in a separate assertion on July 1.
The SEC and Consensys lawsuits have been initiated earlier than the US Supreme Court docket issued two opinions that would affect how the fee handles enforcement instances. One opinion decided that defendants in SEC civil instances involving securities fraud are entitled to a jury trial, whereas one other requires courts to evaluate whether or not a federal company just like the SEC has acted inside its statutory authority.
The end result of this case might have important ramifications for the regulatory panorama of cryptocurrencies and the SEC’s future enforcement methods.
