US Court Rejects Gemini, CFTC Request to Vacate Sanctions Settlement
Summary
- A federal court in New York rejected a request by Gemini and the CFTC to vacate an existing sanctions settlement order.
- Gemini's earlier settlement, under which it paid a $5 million civil penalty and accepted a permanent injunction against making false or misleading statements, will remain in place.
- The CFTC sought to undo the settlement, citing problems with the reliability of the evidence and the way the case was handled, but the court declined to grant the request.
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A U.S. court rejected an attempt by cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to undo an earlier sanctions settlement. The judge found that the regulator's own acknowledgment of flaws in the case was not enough to overturn the agreement.
Bloomberg reported on October 15 that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York denied a request by Gemini and the CFTC to vacate the consent order. He cited Gemini's voluntary decision to settle three weeks before trial.
The CFTC sued Gemini in 2022, alleging the exchange provided false or misleading information during the review of a Bitcoin futures product. In January 2025, Gemini agreed to pay a $5 million civil penalty and accepted a permanent injunction barring it from making false or misleading statements to the CFTC in the future.
The CFTC's position shifted after the Trump administration took office. In May, the agency and Gemini jointly asked the court to vacate the settlement order, saying an internal review had identified problems with the reliability of the evidence and the way the case was handled. They also said the case would not have been brought under the agency's current enforcement standards.
Both sides argued that the settlement violated basic principles of fair enforcement. Hellerstein ruled that those circumstances alone were not enough to set aside the existing order. Even if Gemini later obtained additional materials and came to regret the settlement, he said, the facts had not changed enough to make continued enforcement of the order unjust.
