United States of America: Announced lawsuit against KuCoin for allegedly failing to register in the State of New York

On 9 March 2023, the Office of the New York Attorney General (OAG) filed a lawsuit against KuCoin, a virtual currency trading platform, for failing to register as a securities and exchange broker-dealer and falsely representing itself as a crypto exchange. In particular, the OAG found that KuCoin had enabled its investors to buy and sell cryptocurrency through its website in the state without being registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as is required by New York law. In addition, KuCoin also failed to comply with a subpoena issued by OAG to provide more information about its digital asset trading activities in the state. The New York Attorney General seeks a court order stopping KuCoin's misrepresentation of itself as a crypto exchange, preventing the company from operating in New York, and directing KuCoin to implement geo-blocking based on IP addresses and GPS location to prevent access to its services from New York.