The Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has collected more than $4.68 billion in illegal income and fines in 2020. Around $1‚26 billion in penalties was handed over to the US SEC by unregistered initial coin offerings alone this year. The Enforcement Division Director Stephanie Avakian stated that the SEC obtained judgments and orders totaling approximately $4.68 billion in disgorgement and penalties, which is the highest amount on record.”
Most of the ICO money collected came from Telegram.
The US SEC division’s annual report for the current fiscal year, published this month, provides a complete overview of the U.S. agency’s actions, including eight ICO enforcements. The bulk of the ICO penalties collected came from Telegram. Later last year, the SEC filed an emergency lawsuit against the encrypted messaging giant Telegram for its sale of Gram tokens.
The Russian firm was ordered to return $1.2 billion to investors and pay an $18.5 million fine. This was one of the largest cases for the entire year. This payment by Telegram made up 26% of the entire amount collected by the SEC.
The US SEC took action in 715 cases.
In 2019 the exchange commission also filed a complaint against Kik for its unregistered securities sale. The Canadian firm will pay $5 million to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission. The other six cases against crypto firms, including Bitclave, Shopin, NAC Foundation, Unikrn, Boon Tech, and Bitcoiin2Gen, counted for roughly $40 million in seizures.
The case against the NAC Foundation is yet to come to an end, with the company filing for San Francisco Superior Court to throw the case out due to the SEC allegedly misleading the court. The securities exchange took action in 715 cases, including 405 independent actions ranging across various categories: securities offerings, insider trading, market manipulation, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
