Justin Sun "traveled a lot" around the United States, while his companies sold unregistered securities, in particular, BTT and TRX tokens. According to the regulator, from 2017 to 2019, the businessman spent more than 380 days in the States, making business trips to major cities like New York, Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco on behalf of the Tron Foundation and the BitTorrent Foundation. Both organizations appear in the case as defendants.
The American regulator claims that Justin Sun and these organizations participated in a fraudulent trading scheme on the Bittrex crypto exchange, which has been inactive since December 2023. The amended SEC complaint states that the businessman personally communicated with the management of Bittrex and in 2018 achieved the listing of TRX.
The Commission sued Sanaa back in March 2023. The regulator insists: token sales were conducted for investors in the Southern District of New York, and celebrities promoting these tokens advertised investments to Americans through social networks. In April 2023, the SEC filed a separate lawsuit against Bittrex, and in August 2023, the case was settled — Bittrex agreed to pay the SEC a fine of $24 million.
A few weeks ago, the Tron Foundation filed a petition with the New York Federal Court asking it to dismiss the SEC's lawsuit. San's lawyers claim that their client is a foreign citizen, so the American regulator cannot require him to comply with the US securities act. The petition highlights the lack of information that any U.S. resident has bought or attempted to buy TRX on the platform.