After U.S. District Judge Richard Jones approved Binance Holdings’ plea deal with prosecutors on Friday, the company will have to pay $4.3 billion in fines. In addition to the monetary settlement, Binance’s operations will be managed by a third party for a period of five years.
Seattle Judge Approves Historic $4.3 Billion Binance Settlement
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange based on volume of international trade, will pay out $4.3 billion after Judge Jones approved its plea deal. Along with the $3.5 billion deal with American Home Products, the $3.2 billion lawsuit settlement with Tyco International, and the $2.83 billion in fines paid by Cendant Corporation, this settlement is one of the largest in legal history.
Three days before, according to Bitcoin.com News, U.S. court prosecutors had pressured to support a fine imposed on the cryptocurrency exchange. The court’s decision was covered by Bloomberg’s Sabrina Willmer and Anna Edgerton on Friday. Judge Jones’s attitude was aptly expressed by them when they said, “This really is a case where the company’s ethics were compromised by greed.”
In addition to the substantial penalties, Binance agreed to external monitoring and required its founder, Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, to step down. The CEO of Binance is now Richard Teng, the Global Head of Regional Markets. The cryptocurrency exchange “accepts full responsibility for its past and for the reasons we’re sitting here today,” according to Binance’s legal deputy, Josh Eaton.
The lawyer further emphasized how proud the business is of the “compliance enhancements” it has put in place. CZ will be sentenced in April and might spend about eighteen months behind bars. The former CEO was remanded to stay in the continental United States despite efforts to obtain permission to depart the country prior to his punishment. The court approved CZ’s plea agreement in December 2023.
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