Keyword: fraud

“But if You Fall, You Fall Alone” – The SEC Goes After Ripple

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Seven years after Ripple Labs, Inc. first began to sell its digital asset XRP, the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 22, 2020, filed a Complaint in the Southern District of New York against Ripple and its current and former CEOs, alleging that since it began these sales, Ripple has been engaged in an unregistered securities offering through the sale of its XRP token within the United States and worldwide. In the action, which does not allege fraud, the SEC is seeking injunctive relief, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties.

The SEC applied a legal analysis similar to that in other enforcement actions against offerors of digital assets, such as Kik and Telegram. What separates the Ripple Complaint from others is the years-long history of activity the SEC draws upon to allege that the Defendants created substantial risk to investors through asymmetric information disclosures for their own personal gain—the very thing the securities laws are designed to protect against.

The Howey test is used to determine if a financial instrument is an “investment contract” and thus a security. An investment contract was defined by the Supreme Court in SEC v. W. J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293 (1946), as an investment in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits or returns derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others. Applying that test, the SEC alleges that purchases of XRP constituted investments, and the XRP offering constituted a common enterprise because the fortunes of the participants were tied together. In typical cases brought by the SEC to date alleging that a form of cryptocurrency is a security, these two prongs of the Howey test have been easily met.

As to the third prong: the SEC alleges that purchasers of XRP reasonably expected their profits to be derived from the efforts of the Defendants, pointing to their efforts to create, control, and manage secondary markets for XRPs, to develop XRP use cases, and to work with banks and other financial intermediaries to implement said use cases. In contrast, note that SEC officials have declared that Bitcoin is not a security—and at least one former commissioner has stated that, in his view, Ether, in its current decentralized form isn’t either—because those tokens do not meet the “reasonable efforts of others” prong of the test, since there is no single third party the token holders are reliant upon for the their continued management and success. (The SEC has elaborated on this analysis in the Framework for “Investment Contract” Analysis of Digital Assets.) The SEC is arguing that this is not the case with Ripple, because, according to the Complaint, XRP investors are not in any position to undertake “various, complex, expensive and all-encompassing strategies about when or how to sell XRP into the markets to protect XRP’s price, volume, and liquidity. Nor are XRP investors in any position to increase significantly ‘demand’ or ‘value’ for XRP by developing a ‘use’ for the token through entrepreneurial efforts—at least not without Ripple’s support.”

The 71-page, 404-paragraph fact-intensive Complaint appears designed to leave little to doubt about the extensive history of the conduct alleged. (According to the Complaint, the statute of limitations as to possible claims against the company was tolled six times.) The SEC’s efforts to bolster its legal conclusions includes, oddly, a footnote citing to guidance from a sister regulator, FinCEN, for its views on the application of the federal securities laws to convertible virtual currencies. And the lengthy Complaint overpleads the SEC’s case, devoting substantial discussion to facts suggesting manipulative conduct designed to support the price of XRP through artificial means, although the SEC does not go so far as to include a cause of action for manipulation. 

In sum, it is unclear whether the attention given by the SEC’s Complaint to dated facts, and allegations that go well beyond the causes of action, constitutes a litigation strategy; a hint about the future direction of SEC cryptocurrency enforcement efforts; or compensation for the SEC’s inaction with respect to this company until now. But it does beg the question as to why the SEC allowed Ripple to operate for as long as it did before bringing this Complaint, during which the XRP attained widespread distribution and heavy concentration with some investors.

Fraud is Fraud – Sales of Unregistered Digital Securities Resemble Classic Microcap Fraud

A Complaint filed by the SEC in the Southern District of New York last week reminds us that in the area of securities law violations there is not much new under the sun. Even though the action against Eran Eyal and UnitedData, Inc. d/b/a “Shopin” involves the sale of digital assets, and the business of the issuer of those digital assets purportedly involves a blockchain application, the alleged wrongful conduct bears the hallmarks of a traditional securities offering scheme; one can substitute “unregistered securities” for the tokens offered, “private placement” for the token pre-sale, and a speculative venture – such as the “self-cooling can” that was the subject of an SEC offering fraud case years ago – for the blockchain applications touted by the issuer, and the Complaint is one that could have been drafted thirty years ago. To the extent that certain recent cases involving offerings of cryptocurrencies have presented novel applications of the securities laws and the Howey test of whether a digital currency is a security, this case isn’t one of them.

A description of the alleged misconduct makes the parallels clear. The SEC alleges that the issuer, Shopin, and its CEO, Mr. Eyal, conducted a fraudulent and unregistered offering of digital securities. The company’s business plan involved the creation of personal online shopping profiles that would track customers’ purchase histories across numerous online retailers, and link those profiles to the blockchain. However, Shopin allegedly never had a functioning product. The company’s pivot to the blockchain and rebranding resulted from its struggles to stay in business as a non-blockchain business.

The company apparently commenced its digital securities offering with a “pre-sale” of tokens through an unregistered offering, not unlike the private placement of securities that is often alleged as the first step in an offering fraud. Shopin’s initial sales of investment interests were made pursuant to a SAFT – a simple agreement for future tokens – in which initial investors paid bitcoin or ether in exchange for an interest in tokens at a discount that would be delivered once Shopin created the tokens at the completion of the public ICO. The proceeds of this pre-sale purportedly would be used to develop, launch and market the Shopin network, similar to the types of promises made in microcap or blind pool offerings. Unsold tokens in the pre-sale would go to insiders at Shopin and its advisors. The SEC determined that the Shopin tokes were investment contracts under the Howey test, because the purchasers invested money in the form of digital currency, the investors’ funds would be pooled in a common enterprise, and the defendants led the token purchasers to expect profits from their purchases because of the defendants’ efforts.

In its complaint, the SEC treated the token sale – which, again, was not registered under the securities laws – as a private placement subject to Regulation D, and alleged that the defendants failed to ensure that the purchasers of the tokens were accredited investors. Indeed, the SEC alleged that certain investors tried to satisfy the minimum investment requirements by pooling their investments in syndicates. This is a variant of the artifices employed by microcap issuers to artificially achieve a minimum offering level by making nominee purchases. The defendants also, in another resemblance to a microcap scheme, allegedly told investors they intended to have the Shopin tokens listed on digital-asset trading platforms – analogous to a promise to list penny stocks on an exchange – which purportedly would enable investors to realize profits on their positions by selling the tokens at a premium.

Having established that the ICO had the elements of a securities offering, the SEC described the material misrepresentations that the defendants made to investors: that the company had participated in successful pilot programs with prominent retailers; that the defendants had partnerships with numerous retailers; and that it was advised by a prominent individual in the digital asset field, who in fact had asked the company to remove his name as an advisor. Finally, and most serious, the SEC alleged that the defendants had misused portions of the offering proceeds, including for personal expenses, such as an individual’s rent, shopping and entertainment and – the type of salacious detail the SEC likes to include – to pay for a dating service.

Securities schemes tend to fall into certain patterns that involve the use of unregistered securities and misrepresentations to separate investors from their money, and schemes involving digital currency that resembles a security often fall into the same patterns. Perhaps recognizing that those patterns are recognizable to triers of fact and the public, the SEC alleges violations involving digital currency in similar terms. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has repeatedly emphasized that the regulator will use its traditional tools and standards in treating sales of digital assets that conform to the definition of a security: for example, as he stated last year, “A token, a digital asset, where I give you my money and you go off and make a venture, and in return for giving you my money I say ‘you can get a return’ that is a security and we regulate that. We [the SEC] regulate the offering of that security and regulate the trading of that security.” Legitimate sales and offerings of digital currency might use a different vocabulary and analysis but, as the allegations in the case discussed here show, fraud is fraud.

NY AG Accuses Bitfinex and Tether of Covering Up $851 Million Loss in Investor Funds

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On April 25, 2019, New York’s Attorney General secured a preliminary injunction against Bitfinex, a cryptocurrency trading platform, and Tether, the company behind tether (USDT), one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies. In papers filed with the court last Wednesday, the state AG accused the companies of misleading investors about their financial well-being while using Tether’s bank account to prop up Bitfinex with $700 million in undisclosed loans. The injunction requires Bitfinex and Tether to temporarily cease drawing down Tether’s cash reserves and to turn over detailed information about their finances and client accounts to the state AG as it investigates them for financial fraud.

As we have discussed in previous blog posts, courts and regulators have determined that some virtual currencies are securities or commodities that are subject to state and federal laws and regulations. Last week’s developments serve as a reminder to cryptocurrency exchanges and token distributors alike that they may be subject to the laws and regulations of any jurisdiction in which they operate. In this case, although Bitfinex purportedly no longer permits U.S. traders to use its platform and is not a licensed exchange in New York, the state AG’s office argued that it and Tether are subject to New York law because some New York residents still use the platform, just as some New York residents own USDT. The companies’ connections to New York subject them to scrutiny under the Martin Act, New York’s powerful “blue sky” securities law that gives the state AG the authority to investigate and prosecute securities fraud regardless of fraudulent intent.

In papers submitted to the court, New York’s AG alleged that Bitfinex dipped into Tether’s cash holdings to prop itself up after $851 million was seized from one of its bank accounts. Bitfinex had deposited the cash with an entity called Crypto Capital Corp., who was engaged by Bitfinex to process its clients’ withdrawals. In late 2018, Crypto Capital reported to Bitfinex that it could no longer process withdrawals or return Bitfinex’s funds to it because they had been seized by authorities in Portugal, Poland, and the U.S. To cover up the loss, Bitfinex allegedly caused Tether to extend it a $900 million line of credit, of which Bitfinex has accessed approximately $700 million. Neither Bitfinex nor Tether publicly disclosed these transactions. The state AG alleges that Bitfinex was able to borrow the funds from Tether because the two companies are operated by the same individuals and share the same parent company.

The New York AG has accused Bitfinex and Tether of misleading investors about the security of their investments and of engaging in self-dealing by causing Tether to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to Bitfinex, taking on enormous amounts of risk without receiving anything of value in return. Tether has long represented that it holds one U.S. dollar in reserve for each of the 2.6 billion outstanding USDT, and that holders of USDT can redeem them at any time for U.S. dollars at a rate of one USDT to one U.S. dollar. Although Tether has recently disclosed that outstanding USDT may be backed by “other assets and receivables” in addition to U.S. dollars, the state AG is investigating, among other questions, whether Tether’s transactions with Bitfinex have rendered Tether’s public statements misleading. The New York AG has also accused the companies of misleading state investigators by purporting to cooperate in the AG’s investigation while secretly transferring funds from Tether to Bitfinex.

Bitfinex responded on Friday with a forcefully worded denial of the allegations brought against it and Tether and reiterated that the companies “are financially strong – full stop.”

Although the New York AG has stated that it does not want its investigation to harm Tether investors or Bitfinex clients, it’s possible that information revealed during the investigation could affect confidence in the companies or in cryptocurrency markets generally. Bitcoin’s price fell seven percent immediately following the announcement of the AG’s investigation on Thursday, perhaps providing a window into the volatility that will come if Bitfinex’s assurances that it and Tether are financially sound are found to be misleading.