In mid-March, a federal court imposed sanctions and rebuked the SEC for gross abuse of power in a case against a Digital Licensing crypto platform known as Debt Box. After that, two legal representatives of the department who prepared a legal claim for the state regulator, Michael Welsh and Joseph Watkins, voluntarily resigned.
Recall that in July last year, the SEC sent a lawsuit to the federal court, in which it accused Debt Box and its executives of fraud in the amount of at least $49 million. At the request of the regulator, the judicial authorities froze the assets of Debt Box and appointed a bankruptcy trustee to the crypto firm.
However, the asset lock was subsequently lifted. The court found that the SEC could have made "substantially false and misleading statements." District Judge Robert Shelby imposed sanctions on the SEC for "gross abuse of the powers granted to it by Congress" and ordered the agency to pay part of the Debt Box attorneys' fees.