• CoinEx, a Hong Kong-based crypto platform, is being sued by the New York Attorney General Letitia James for failing to register as a securities and commodities broker-dealer in the state and not complying with a subpoena.
• The lawsuit claims that CoinEx had listed various tokens and services that qualify as securities and/or commodities, including Flexa’s AMP, LBRY’s LBC, Terraform Labs’ LUNA and Rally’s RLY tokens.
• The NYAG’s office is seeking full monetary restitution from CoinEx, geofencing of New York IP addresses, ceasing all business operations in the state, and payment of NYAG fees.

CoinEx Sued By New York Attorney General

Hong Kong-based crypto platform CoinEx is facing a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James for falsely presenting itself as an exchange without registering as a securities and commodities broker-dealer in the state.

Allegations Against CoinEx

The petition filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York alleged that CoinEx had listed various tokens and services that qualify as securities or commodities under state law without registering with regulators before offering its services in the state. Furthermore, it was claimed that CoinEx failed to comply with a subpoena issued on December 22nd 2022 requiring them to provide testimony concerning virtual asset trading activities of its platform.

NYAG Seeking Monetary Restitution

As a result of these allegations against CoinEx, the NYAG’s office is seeking full monetary restitution from them along with geofencing New York IP addresses so they are unable to access their services within the state, ceasing all business operations within New York State, and payment of NYAG fees.

New York Crypto Regulation History

New York has been actively involved in crypto regulation lawsuits against other companies such as Alex Mashinsky (former CEO of Celsius), Bitfinex and Tether in addition to this suit against CoinEx. Nexo Inc was recently forced to pay $22 million by 10 US states after conducting transactions without proper registration or lying about their registration status.

Conclusion

CoinEx is just one more cryptocurrency exchange facing legal action over its operations due to inadequate compliance with local regulations relating to cryptocurrency products/services offered on their platform.