So far, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement agency has collected more than 4.68 billion U.S. dollars in illegal income and fines so far this year, of which more than a quarter came from Telegram’s Gram token sale.
In total, unregistered initial coin offerings (ICOs) handed over approximately $1.26 billion to the SEC.
Stephanie Avakian, head of the SEC’s law enforcement department, said:
“The US Securities and Exchange Commission has collected a total of approximately $4.68 billion in refunds and fines, the highest amount ever.”
The SEC Enforcement Department’s fiscal 2020 annual report released earlier this month provides a comprehensive overview of the agency’s actions, including eight ICO enforcement. So far, most of the ICO funds collected have come from Telegram.
In October 2019, the SEC filed an emergency lawsuit against Telegram’s gram token ICO. Telegram agreed to return 1.2 billion US dollars to investors and pay a fine of 18.5 million US dollars, which is one of the largest cases of the year. Telegram’s fines accounted for 26% of all payments collected by the SEC.
In 2019, the SEC also filed a lawsuit against Kik’s sale of unregistered securities. Kik paid $5 million to the SEC.
Six other cases against Bitclave, Shopin, NAC Foundation, Unikrn, Boon Tech and Bitcoiin2Gen confiscated approximately $40 million. However, the case against the NAC Foundation has not been resolved. Because the SEC was suspected of misleading the court, the NAC Foundation applied to the San Francisco Superior Court to dismiss the case.
The SEC has taken actions on 715 cases, including 405 independent actions involving securities issuance, insider trading, market manipulation, and the FCPA. Of the $4.68 billion collected by the SEC, $600 million was returned to the victimized investors.
This year, in the independent actions taken by the SEC, there were 130 securities issuances, accounting for 30.2% of all other categories, ahead of all other categories.
It is worth noting that the SEC’s whistleblower program was hailed as “an important part of the SEC’s efforts to detect misconduct and protect market investors.” 39 whistleblowers received a total of $175 million in rewards. Three weeks ago, the SEC awarded a whistleblower $114 million.
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