{"id":36898,"date":"2021-02-23T15:53:57","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T13:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=36898"},"modified":"2025-08-29T08:42:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T05:42:52","slug":"bitfinex-and-tether-to-pay-new-york-state-18-5-million-in-settlement-over-financial-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/bitfinex-and-tether-to-pay-new-york-state-18-5-million-in-settlement-over-financial-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitfinex and Tether to pay New York State $18.5 million in settlement over financial operations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and Tether reached a settlement with the New York Attorney General&#8217;s Office (NYAG) over the company&#8217;s financial operations tied to an $850 million loss. According to the agency&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/ag.ny.gov\/press-release\/2021\/attorney-general-james-ends-virtual-currency-trading-platform-bitfinexs-illegal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n<!--more-->\n<\/p>\n<p>As part of the settlement, Bitfinex and Tether will pay $18.5 million to the state of New York. The companies did not admit wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">No finding that Tether ever issued without backing or to impact crypto prices. This settlement shows our commitment to the future of the industry, and to transparency with quarterly disclosures of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Tether_to?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@tether_to<\/a> reserves going forward. 2\/3<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bitfinex (@bitfinex) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bitfinex\/status\/1364198208084271105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 23, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Tether also agreed to provide NYAG with reports on the backing of the stablecoin USDT. The agency acknowledged the repayment of Bitfinex&#8217;s debt to Tether.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;The Attorney General essentially concluded that we could have done a better job of reporting these events,&#8221; said Tether.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Attorney General Letitia James said that both companies &#8220;irresponsibly and unlawfully concealed enormous financial losses.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Tether&#8217;s claims that its digital asset was fully backed by US dollars were a lie. These companies concealed the true risk investors faced,&#8221; stressed the attorney general.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to James, state authorities intend to stand up to &#8220;corporate greed&#8221; regardless of whether the company is tied to traditional finance or cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p>In a comment to The Block, Stuart Hogner, the lawyer representing the companies, said the settlement amount should be viewed &#8220;as an expression of our desire to put this matter behind us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The companies&#8217; general counsel, Jason Weinstein, said that the results of the investigation &#8220;are limited to the nature and timing of the disclosure of certain information.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Contrary to online speculation, there was no evidence of Tether issuing unbacked USDT or manipulating prices,&#8221; said in a joint <a href=\"https:\/\/tether.to\/tether-and-bitfinex-reach-settlement-with-new-york-attorney-generals-office\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">statement<\/a> by the companies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The litigation had been ongoing since April 2019, when the NYAG accused Bitfinex of trying to conceal the $850 million loss using Tether&#8217;s reserves. The exchange disputed the claims.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Supreme Court ordered Bitfinex to hand over documents relating to the loss of access to fiat funds. The company sought to challenge the ruling but lost on appeal.<\/p>\n<p>In September 2020, the court <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/court-orders-bitfinex-and-tether-to-hand-over-documents-to-new-york-attorney-general\">ordered Bitfinex and Tether<\/a> to transmit financial statements to the prosecutor&#8217;s office and extended the injunction on the transfer of funds.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, the NYAG asked the court <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/new-york-attorney-general-secures-documents-from-bitfinex-and-tether\">to extend the deadline<\/a> for providing documents. In January 2021, Tether&#8217;s chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino said that the company had prepared<a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/bitfinex-and-tether-seek-one-month-extension-to-hand-over-documents-to-the-new-york-attorney-general\"> more than 2.5 million pages<\/a> in response to the agency&#8217;s requests.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to ForkLog News on Telegram: ForkLog FEED \u2014 the full stream of news, ForkLog \u2014 the most important news and polls.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block;\"><a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View 2021.02.17 - Settlement Agreement - Execution Version.b-t Signed-c2 Oag Signed on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/495665539\/2021-02-17-Settlement-Agreement-Execution-Version-b-t-Signed-c2-Oag-Signed#from_embed\">2021.02.17 \u2014 Settlement Agreement \u2014 Execution Version.b-t Signed-c2 Oag Signed<\/a> by <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View ForkLog's profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/user\/456422024\/ForkLog#from_embed\">ForkLog<\/a> on Scribd<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_34594\" class=\"scribd_iframe_embed\" title=\"2021.02.17 - Settlement Agreement - Execution Version.b-t Signed\" src=\"https:\/\/ru.scribd.com\/embeds\/495665539\/content?start_page=1&#038;view_mode=scroll&#038;access_key=key-spO1GKiuokodzuT38Ohr\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-auto-height=\"false\" data-aspect-ratio=\"0.7729220222793488\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and Tether reached a settlement with the New York Attorney General\u2019s Office (NYAG) over the company\u2019s financial operations tied to an $850 million loss, according to the agency\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95,1245],"class_list":["post-36898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitfinex","tag-tether-usdt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"29","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36900,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36898\/revisions\/36900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}