Plaintiffs claim that throughout the class period, Coinbase made false and deceptive statements about the company’s operations, business, and compliance efforts in both cases.
Regulators are now paying more attention to Coinbase, and the business is now the subject of numerous lawsuits. The United States Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), which is currently looking into the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange, is now facing two more legal complaints from two different law firms.
Bragar Eagel & Squire, a law firm based in New York, announced on Thursday that it would sue Coinbase for making false statements about its business practices. In a separate lawsuit brought against the exchange, Pomerantz LLP asserts that it is entitled to damages for any losses sustained as a result of the defendant’s contraventions of federal securities laws. The plaintiffs are seeking compensation in this lawsuit.
Plaintiffs contend in both complaints that between April 14, 2021, and July 26, 2022, Coinbase made false and misleading statements about its business, operations, and compliance efforts. The complaints allege that Coinbase failed to disclose that client cryptocurrency was held in escrow at the company, making it a subject of bankruptcy proceedings in which clients would be treated as general unsecured creditors of the business.
Additionally, it was claimed that Coinbase would not reveal that it allowed American citizens to trade digital assets that, despite its knowledge and complacency, required SEC registration as securities. The lawsuits contend that as a result of the earlier actions, Coinbase’s public representations were consistently, and to a significant extent, false and deceptive.
In the past, Coinbase has been a party to a number of legal disputes and contentious situations. The SEC is looking into Coinbase for allegedly trading unregistered securities, which is why the two new lawsuits have been filed. In a different lawsuit, Ishan Wahi, a former global product manager for Coinbase, is charged with insider trading. Wahi, however, entered a not guilty plea to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud earlier this month in a Manhattan federal courtroom.