Lawyers representing Coinbase have requested the judge overseeing their legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ignore a prior ruling that classified secondary sales of cryptocurrency assets as “securities transactions,” arguing that this decision was made without thorough examination in court.
Coinbase’s attorney, Michael Savitt, wrote to U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla on March 5, urging her to dismiss the SEC’s classification of cryptocurrency sales on a secondary market as securities contracts in the SEC vs. Wahi case, asserting that this judgment should hold “no weight.”
The SEC secured a default judgment against Ramani without opposition and agreed with the SEC’s assertion that the crypto assets in question qualified as “investment contracts,” a stance contradicted by the SEC in the Coinbase case.
In July 2022, the regulatory authority filed a lawsuit against ex-Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi, along with his brother Nikhil Wahi and their associate Sameer Ramani, alleging insider trading involving nine cryptocurrencies.
The Wahi defendants requested the dismissal of the case, contending that the tokens did not qualify as “investment contracts” and therefore fell beyond the jurisdiction of the SEC.
Before the motion could be resolved, the SEC settled with the Wahi brothers in June 2023, characterized by a “no-dollar, no-admit-no-deny” agreement.
This response from Coinbase follows an SEC notice on March 4, attempting to weaken Coinbase’s case by highlighting the relevance of the Wahi insider trading case, where the tokens were considered securities by the court.
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