New York Court Postponed Judgment on Bitfinex and Tether

Judge Joel Cohen from the Supreme Court of New York decided to extend the temporary injunction and postponed the decision on the case against the Bitfinex exchange and iFinex, instituted by the state prosecutor’s office.

Cohen I decided
extend the ban for 90 days. This probably means that the New York City Attorney’s Office (NYAG) can continue the investigation. Tether’s lawyers tried to appeal to reject the petition immediately, but Cohen rejected their appeal.

Speaking in court, iFinex representatives argued that the court has no jurisdiction over the subject of the claim, because Tether is not a security or exchange commodity, since there is no futures market. Protection of companies also stressed that Tether and Bitfinex are two different companies with two different business models, and that it is wrong to treat them as a single entity, as NYAG does.

Earlier this month, NYAG introduced
New evidence that the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange and Tether served New York customers for longer than they claimed. For the first time, NYAG filed a complaint against Bitfinex and Tether in April 2019, claiming that Bitfinex covered a loss of more than $ 850 million by borrowing funds from Tether reserves.

Then it was reported that Bitfinex lost $ 850 million after it sent them to the Panamanian payment operator Crypto Capital Corp. As a result, funds were either lost or simply stolen. After that, the Bitfinex operator had to cover the losses using the reserves of Tether’s stablebcoin.