Canadian crypto traders suing Binance given court approval
Ontario’s superior court has green-lit a class action lawsuit against Binance that accuses the crypto exchange of selling unregistered crypto derivative products and violating securities law.
The lawsuit, brought by Christopher Lochan and Jeremy Leeder, claims that Binance sold crypto-derivative products to thousands of retail traders while failing to register with the Ontario Securities Commission, as required by law.
As reported by Advisor.ca, the lawsuit received a certification of motion on April 19 allowing it to proceed as a ‘class action’ lawsuit and represent a wide basis of people without each individual having to take legal action.
Judge E.M. Morgan noted that Lochan and Leeder claim “they are two of the tens of thousands of Canadian users of the Binance website who invested in cryptocurrency products and who claim that those products were sold by the Defendants illegally.”
Read more: Binance and CZ plead guilty but SEC lawsuit remains
When approving the lawsuit, the judge noted, “The plaintiffs have met the evidentiary burden on them of establishing some basis in fact that the issues raised in the four liability questions are common across the class.”
The plaintiffs are seeking damages for the crypto trades that took place and the rescission of their contract with Binance. Binance argued rescission was not appropriate as it claimed it was a third party to these transactions.
The court, however, rejected Binance’s argument and noted that it couldn’t provide any relevant contracts supporting its theory.
The Judge said, “One would think that if it is the defendants’ view that Binance website users contract with each other and that Binance is only a medium for these contracts, then they could produce at least one such contract.”
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