Binance loses footing in Europe as French prosecutors investigate exchange and Netherlands denies license application

On Friday, the French newspaper the world mentioned That the plaintiffs are investigating the company’s subsidiary in France for violating the country’s anti-money laundering laws. A spokesperson for SEJF, the French government agency responsible for investigating financial crimes, said the investigation related to Binance’s alleged illegal operations as a provider of digital assets as well as “aggravated money laundering”. luck in the current situation.

Furthermore, the spokesperson said that the investigation has been ongoing for more than a year, after prosecutors from the specialized regional jurisdiction in Paris referred the case to the SEJF in February 2022.

“We comply with all laws in France, just as we do in any other market in which we operate,” said a Binance spokesperson. luck in the current situation. “We will not comment on details of law enforcement actions or regulatory investigations except to say that information about our users is held securely and will only be provided to government officials upon receipt of appropriate documented justification.”

On the same day, Binance announced that it was leaving the Netherlands after the Dutch regulatory agency did not approve the exchange’s application to become a VASP, or Virtual Asset Services Provider.

We regret to announce that Binance will be leaving the Dutch market as we were unable to register as a VASP with the Dutch regulator.

We continue our commitment to working collaboratively with regulators around the world and focus extra on getting our business…

– Binance (binance) June 16, 2023

“We regret to announce that Binance will leave the Dutch market because we were unable to register as a VASP with the Dutch regulator,” the exchange wrote on Twitter. “We continue our commitment to working collaboratively with regulators around the world.”

News of France’s investigation into Binance as well as the exchange’s withdrawal from the Netherlands follow a devastating lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission less than two weeks ago against the company, its US subsidiary, and Binance’s founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao.

In the 136-page document, which included 13 counts, the SEC alleged that Binance.US sold unregistered securities and thus acted as an unlicensed securities exchange. Furthermore, it alleged that Binance sabotaged controls in order to “secretly allow high net worth US clients to continue trading on the Binance.com platform” despite the service being shut down in the region. (The CFTC made similar accusations in a lawsuit filed in late March.)

“We allege that entities Zhao and Binance have engaged in a wide web of deception, conflict of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law,” said Gary Gensler, Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. statement.

Since then, the company has experienced large negative net outflows, increasing pressure on it United States companyand rumors of upcoming Justice Department charges.