Justin Sun “traveled a lot” around the US while his companies were selling unregistered securities, specifically BTT and TRX tokens. According to the regulator, from 2017 to 2019, the businessman spent more than 380 days in the States, making business trips to major cities such as New York, Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco on behalf of the Tron Foundation and the BitTorrent Foundation. Both organizations are named as defendants in the case.
The US regulator alleges that Justin Sun and these organizations took part in a fraudulent trading scheme on the Bittrex crypto exchange, which has been inactive since December 2023. The amended SEC complaint states that the businessman personally communicated with Bittrex management and achieved the listing of TRX in 2018.
The commission sued Sun back in March 2023. The regulator insists: the token sales were conducted for investors in the Southern District of New York, and the celebrities promoting these tokens advertised investments to Americans through social networks. In April 2023, the SEC filed a separate lawsuit against Bittrex, and in August 2023 the case was settled – Bittrex agreed to pay the SEC a fine of $24 million.
A few weeks ago, the Tron Foundation filed a motion in New York federal court asking that the SEC's lawsuit be dismissed. Sun's lawyers argue that their client is a foreign citizen, so the US regulator cannot require him to comply with US securities laws. The petition highlights that there is no record of any US resident purchasing or attempting to purchase TRX on the platform.
Source: Bits
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