Welcome to Regulation Decoded, your weekly digest of all the main developments within the area of regulation.

The FTX drama escalated final week when the Royal Bahamas Police Pressure arrested its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, on the request of the USA authorities. Inside hours, politicians, crypto executives and influencers had all booted up their Twitter apps to touch upon the arrest of the previous CEO, who needed to miss his testimony earlier than the U.S. Congress. Nonetheless, the textual content of SBF’s deliberate testimony was obtained by the media, whereby he blamed the inclusion of FTX.US within the Chapter 11 chapter on John J. Ray III, a restructuring lawyer who assumed the function of FTX CEO after the chapter submitting.

The physique of allegations in opposition to FTX and SBF personally is stacking up. America Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) charged Bankman-Fried with violating the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Trade Act of 1934. On the similar time, the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) has filed a lawsuit in opposition to Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX and Alameda Analysis, claiming violations of the Commodity Trade Act and demanding a jury trial. A contemporary indictment, signed by United States Lawyer for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams, is 14 pages lengthy and comprises eight counts.

Bankman-Fried reportedly reconsidered his earlier resolution to contest extradition and is anticipated to look in court docket within the Bahamas on Dec. 19 to hunt a reversal. By consenting to extradition, he would have the ability to seem in a United States court docket, the place If convicted, he might rise up to 115 years in jail. Nonetheless, there’s a “lot to play out” within the case till he will get a closing sentence throughout the subsequent few months and even years, authorized commentators informed Cointelegraph.

Senators Warren and Marshall introduce money-laundering laws for crypto

U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Roger Marshall launched the Digital Asset Anti-Cash Laundering Act of 2022. The seven-page invoice would broaden the classification of a cash service enterprise (MSB), prohibit monetary establishments from utilizing expertise equivalent to digital asset mixers and regulate digital asset kiosks, in any other case referred to as ATMs.

Cash service companies can be required to have written Anti-Cash Laundering insurance policies and to implement them. The invoice would finalize reporting necessities already proposed by FinCEN and impose new necessities, together with reporting transactions over $10,000 in accordance with the Financial institution Secrecy Act.

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Canada bans crypto leverage and margin buying and selling

The Canadian Securities Directors (CSA), the council of Canada’s provincial and territorial securities regulators, issued an replace to crypto buying and selling platforms working within the nation. Based on the assertion, all crypto buying and selling companies working in Canada — each native and overseas ones — must adjust to newly expanded phrases, which ban them from providing margin or leverage buying and selling providers to any Canadian purchasers. The expanded phrases additionally require crypto alternate providers suppliers in Canada to segregate custody property from the platform’s proprietary enterprise.

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Nigeria set to go invoice recognizing Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies

The Nigerian authorities will reportedly quickly go a legislation that may acknowledge the utilization of Bitcoin (BTC) and different cryptocurrencies as a way to maintain updated with world practices. If the Investments and Securities Act 2007 (Modification) Invoice is signed into legislation, it might enable the native Securities and Trade Fee to “acknowledge cryptocurrency and different digital funds as capital for funding.”

The report comes nearly 24 months after Nigeria banned crypto exercise in February 2021, with the Central Financial institution of Nigeria (CBN) ordering native crypto exchanges and repair suppliers to stop exercise and mandating banks to shutter the accounts of any people or entities discovered to be participating in buying and selling actions.

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