The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that it has filed a lawsuit and received a temporary injunction against two offshore companies that sell Gram cryptocurrency in the US and other countries. At the time of receipt of the court decision, the defendants managed to attract more than $1,7 billion in investor funds.
According to the SEC complaint, Telegram Group Inc. and its subsidiary TON Issuer Inc. began raising funds intended to finance companies, develop their own cryptocurrency and the TON (Telegram Open Network) blockchain platform in January 2018. The defendants managed to sell about 2,9 billion Gram tokens at reduced prices to 171 buyers. Over 1 billion Gram tokens were purchased by 39 US buyers.
The company promised to provide access to tokens after the launch of Gram, which should take place no later than October 31, 2019. After that, token holders will be able to trade cryptocurrency in the US markets. The regulator believes that the company is trying to enter the market without following the necessary procedures, violating the registration provisions of the Securities Act.
βOur emergency action is to prevent Telegram from flooding the US markets with digital tokens that we believe were sold illegally. We contend that the defendants failed to provide investors with information about Gram and Telegram's business operations, financial condition, risk factors, and governance that would be required under securities laws,β said Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC's Judgment Enforcement Division.
βWe have repeatedly stated that issuers cannot escape federal securities laws by simply labeling their product with a cryptocurrency or digital token. Telegram seeks to benefit from the public offering without meeting long-established disclosure obligations aimed at protecting the investing public,β said Steven Peikin, co-director of the SEC Enforcement Division.
Representatives of the Telegram company and Pavel Durov have not yet commented on the actions of the SEC.
Source: 3dnews.ru