Regulatory Overdrive? SEC Requests 'Alternative Means' To Summon Binance And CEO Zhao

Just a few days after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed 13 charges against Binance.US, the agency submitted a request seeking permission to use "alternative means" to issue legal summons to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ).

The U.S. financial regulator filed a case document at the U.S. district court in Washington, D.C last Wednesday and explained that the use of traditional way of service summons to the CEO of Binance might prove difficult. It requested the court's approval to use "alternative means."

"Binance and Zhao are not the typical foreign entity and individual, as they are widely known for disagreeing with the premise of a headquarters or domicile, let alone identifying one, and Zhao is famously protective of revealing his whereabouts," the court filing read.

The Wall Street regulator also requested the court to order CZ and Binance to provide a "sworn accounting" or a legal disclosure of financial details, claiming it has no idea of the full extent of the defendants' assets.

"The SEC requests that this court order defendants to promptly serve the SEC with a sworn accounting. Given that Binance's and Zhao's location abroad and BAM Trading's inability to provide accurate information, the SEC does not yet know the full extent of the defendants' assets, and the whereabouts of investor money, or the status or location of other assets that may be used to satisfy a money judgment against defendants," the SEC said, adding that "an accounting will be a critical next step to ascertain these facts."

CZ is a Canadian citizen who is believed to have purchased a home in Dubai in 2021, but in March, Binance spokesperson Dewi Mustajab claimed the CEO divides his time between France and Dubai.

The SEC filed a lawsuit against Binance.US, CZ and BAM Trading on June 5 over allegations of securities law violations. At the time, SEC chairman Gary Gensler said the lawsuit is due to "an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law."

"As alleged, Zhao and Binance misled investors about their risk controls and corrupted trading volumes while actively concealing who was operating the platform, the manipulative trading of its affiliated market maker, and even where and with whom investor funds and crypto assets were custodied. They attempted to evade U.S. securities laws by announcing sham controls that they disregarded behind the scenes so that they could keep high-value U.S. customers on their platforms. The public should beware of investing any of their hard-earned assets with or on these unlawful platforms," he added.

The next day, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, another major global crypto exchange platform based in the U.S.

Binance, last week requested the court to recuse Gensler from the lawsuit, pointing out his history with the world's largest crypto exchange, its CEO Zhao and some of the crypto empire's executives.