Six law professors and academics submitted amicus briefs in support of crypto exchange Coinbase against the SEC. Also, Paradigm and a16z have prepared a short dossier supporting Coinbase in the battle with the SEC.
Support for crypto exchange from 6 Law Professors
Six law professors and academics with expertise in securities law and related fields submitted amicus briefs in support of crypto exchange Coinbase in a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The lawyers submitted their case to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. They noted that the dossier was submitted to aid the careful enforcement of securities laws and the court’s understanding of the history of those laws. This development comes a day after Senator Cynthia Lummis presented an amicus brief in favor of the stock market.
Stephen M. Bainbridge of UCLA, Tamar Frankel of Boston University, Sean J. Griffith of Fordham Law School, Lawrence Hamermesh of Widener University, M. Todd Henderson of University of Chicago Law School, and Jonathan R of Yale Law School. Macey serves as amicius. Legal scholars have created a clear history of the definition of investment contracts in their dossier for the crypto exchange.
Howey Test criteria for investment contracts
In the filing, the lawyers argued with the Howey test that federal lawsuits recognize that “investment contracts” require an expectation in a business’s income, profits or assets. As a result, law professors stated that the Court should stick to its established meaning when interpreting the term ‘investment contract’ in the case against crypto exchange Coinbase. In this context, they made the following statement:
An investor must be promised an ongoing contractual interest in the income, profits or assets of the business through his investment. In this section, we discuss some of these cases.
Paradigm and a16z file for crypto exchange support
Two tech-focused venture capital firms say they are concerned about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s claim that it’s overreaching in the crypto industry. Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, and Paradigm presented a joint amicus brief on Friday, supporting Coinbase, which was accused in June of operating as an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearinghouse. In their briefs, firms cite the SEC’s regulatory excess, the unpredictability and arbitrariness of its actions. They argue that this threatens the development of Blockchain technology in the US.
cryptocoin.com As you follow, the SEC has sued other exchanges as well as Coinbase. In the aforementioned cases, the SEC claimed that crypto exchanges did not register with the agency. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler cited concerns about fraud and manipulation for the registry. That’s why he repeatedly said that companies should register with the institution. But Paradigm and a16z argue that this is not possible. They also say it creates tensions between the regulator and the industry.
