US court approves order for Binance to pay $2.7 billion to CFTC

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. court entered an order against crypto exchange Binance and its former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, approving billions of dollars in fines for money laundering following a case brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency said on Monday.

Zhao will pay $150 million and Binance will pay $2.7 billion to the CFTC as a result, the agency said in a statement.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois approved the previously announced settlement and entered a consent order of permanent injunction, civil monetary penalty, and equitable relief against Zhao and Binance, the CFTC said in its statement. The settlement was reached in late November.

The court imposed a $150 million civil monetary penalty personally against Zhao, and required Binance to disgorge $1.35 billion of ill-gotten transaction fees and pay a $1.35 billion penalty to the CFTC, according to the agency.

In November, Zhao stepped down and pleaded guilty to breaking U.S. anti-money laundering laws as part of a settlement resolving a years-long probe into the world’s largest crypto exchange.

At the time, Binance said the resolutions acknowledged the company’s responsibility “for historical, criminal compliance violations, and allow our company to turn the page.”

Binance broke U.S. anti-money laundering and sanctions laws and failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions with organizations the U.S. described as terrorist groups, authorities have said.

The exchange also failed to report transactions with websites devoted to selling child sexual abuse material and was one of the largest recipients of ransomware proceeds, they added.