Crypto News: A US SEC lawsuit dating back to September 2022 against a crypto company has finally ended in a $2.8 million settlement. The lawsuit in question has Hydro Technology Corp. and its former CEO Michael Ross Kane for their role in executing the unrecorded offerings and sales of crypto securities dubbed “Hydro”. In addition, they allegedly perpetrated a scheme to manipulate the trading volume and price of those securities, which netted more than $2 million for Hydrogen.
SEC settles big with hydrogen
On Thursday, a federal judge in New York approved a settlement agreement between the SEC and Miami-based Hydrogen Technology Corp. Co-founder and former CEO Michael Kane also agreed to end the legal dispute. In September, the regulatory body filed a lawsuit against two individuals alleging that they paid a third party to manipulate trading of the company’s Hydro token to artificially inflate its price. The day after the complaint was filed, the third party in question, Tyler Ostern, reached an agreement to settle the case for $41,000.
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As part of the settlement, Hydrogen has agreed to pay a total of nearly $2.8 million, consisting of nearly $1.5 million in distributed profits — which refers to profits gained from illegal or tortious conduct — a fine of more than $1 million, and conservatory interest. Michael Kane, on the other hand, has agreed to pay a fine of approximately $260,000.
Strict conditions for hydrogen
Both the company and Kane are bound by the terms of the settlement, which state that they cannot affirm or disprove the claims made against them. In addition, they are not allowed to sell additional cryptocurrencies unless they have passed a Howey test and received SEC approval. However, Kane will still be able to participate in the broader crypto market, where he can continue to trade cryptocurrencies himself.
According to the complaint filed by the SEC, Michael Kane, who also controlled Hedgeable Inc – an SEC registered investment advisor – needed to raise new capital, leading to the formation of Hydrogen in the December 2017 peak bull market. In January 2018, Hydrogen has minted more than 11 billion Hydro tokens which have been distributed through giveaways to its employees, private investors and to those who have promoted the project as a reward.
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Pratik has been a crypto evangelist since 2016 and has experienced almost everything crypto has to offer. Be it the ICO boom, the bear markets of 2018, Bitcoin’s halving so far – he’s seen it all.
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