ChainCatcher news, according to Caixin, a federal judge in Pennsylvania has remanded the lawsuit against American entrepreneur Elon Musk regarding his "million-dollar lottery" attempt to influence the U.S. elections back to the state court in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner filed a lawsuit against Musk and the "American Political Action Committee" on October 28, accusing them of illegally operating a lottery to influence the presidential election.At a hearing on October 31, Pennsylvania Judge Angelo F. Ciletta stated that he no longer had jurisdiction over the case due to Musk's request to move the lawsuit to federal court, unless the federal court remands the case back to the state court.It is reported that Musk supports former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, spending millions of dollars to support his campaign. Musk announced a lottery with a $1 million prize through the "American Political Action Committee," aimed at increasing voter registration in competitive areas.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the federal court in Northern California denied cryptocurrency exchange Kraken's request to dismiss the SEC lawsuit in a ruling on August 23. The SEC accused Kraken of operating an unregistered securities trading platform, and the court found the SEC's allegations that certain cryptocurrency transactions on the Kraken platform constitute investment contracts to be reasonable. A final ruling in the case has yet to be made.Kraken's Chief Legal Officer Marco Santori stated that they will prove these transactions do not meet the requirements of the Howey test.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the U.S. federal court is prepared to officially rule in favor of Grayscale in its dispute with the U.S. SEC over the Bitcoin spot ETF. According to the procedures for such cases, after the SEC decided last week not to appeal the court's ruling, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has seven days to conclude the case. The deadline is this Friday, and the court can choose to terminate the case without comment or issue further instructions to the SEC regarding the next steps.According to a source familiar with the matter, the court's final ruling may be announced on Friday local time or next Monday. The industry widely expects that the SEC will approve new ETFs, but it is uncertain whether this will happen later this year or sometime in 2024. If approved, Grayscale will convert its Bitcoin trust GBTC into an ETF and list it on the NYSE Arca.

ChainCatcher news, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal court has ordered the South African company Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited (MTI) to pay over $1.7 billion in forex fraud restitution. The ruling found that the company engaged in fraudulent activities in retail forex trading, that the commodity pool operator (CPO) engaged in fraudulent activities, violated registration regulations, and failed to comply with CPO regulations.It is reported that MTI's controller Steynberg was involved in an international fraudulent multi-level marketing scheme, selling Bitcoin to people to participate in an unregistered commodity pool operated by MTI. It was claimed that off-exchange retail forex trading was conducted through the defendant's falsely claimed proprietary "robots" or software programs. During this period, Steynberg, as an individual and as an agent and representative of MTI, obtained at least 29,421 Bitcoins from at least 23,000 individuals in the U.S. and thousands of individuals worldwide, with the court finding that Steynberg directly or indirectly embezzled all the Bitcoins obtained from the commodity pool participants. The MTI company is currently undergoing liquidation in the Republic of South Africa.

ChainCatcher News, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald for the Southern District of New York issued a permanent injunction against Michael Ackerman, prohibiting him from trading on any CFTC-regulated market and from registering with the CFTC. Ackerman is also ordered to pay $27 million in restitution to fraud victims and a $27 million civil penalty for a fraudulent digital asset trading scheme.The CFTC stated that from August 2017 to December 2019, Ackerman defrauded over 150 individuals and entities of at least $33 million, claiming it was for digital asset trading. However, less than $10 million was used for trading digital commodity assets, with the remaining funds misappropriated for personal use or to extend the fraudulent scheme. (Source link)