Coinbase legal chief slams U.S. Treasury’s bid to dismiss Tornado Cash suit

Coinbase legal director Paul Grewal criticized the US Treasury for trying to reject the Tornado’s cash trial by saying that the case is now theoretical.

On March 21, the American Treasury Department officially deleted Tornado Cash and several addresses of intelligent contract associated from its list of sanctions, reversing the August 2022 sanctions imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The regulators had accused the platform of facilitating money laundering activities, including transactions linked to the Lazare group in North Korea.

The movement followed a Decision November 2024 By a federal court of appeal, which concluded that the treasure had exceeded its authority to sanction the immutable intelligent contracts of the cryptographic mixer.

Following the decision of March 21, the Treasury Department declared in a statement that the case should now be considered resolved, arguing that because the Tornado Cash and related intelligent contracts had been radiated from the list of specially designated nationals, the trial was actually “without faith”.

The US Treasury said that the Court should assess whether it was still competent on the case, noting that, like all federal courts, it has a “continuous obligation to be satisfied” on the competence issues in Article III, and for this reason, “the information on the engine is justified”.

Grewal, however, argued in a March 24 x post That this approach does not align with law.

“Power does not decide voluntarily. He is pantalized and he haveses until he can no longer […] After having put the cancellation of TC because they now claim that they mentioned the need for a final judgment. But it’s not the law, and they know it. »»

Paul Grewal, Coinbase Legal Director

According to Grewal, this is an example of a manual of what is known as the voluntary cessation, a legal principle where a defendant puts an end to a disputed action in order to avoid a court decision.

However, this only applies if there is clear insurance that behavior will not happen again. In the opinion of Grewal, the treasure has not provided any guarantee of this type.

He referred to a decision of the Supreme Court in 2024 involving an American citizen who had been withdrawn from the list of non-nights. The court concluded that the case was not theoretical, because the government had not assured that the individual would not be put back on the list.

Although the cash arbor has been removed from the list of sanctions, Grewal noted that the treasure had given “no insurance”, it will no longer be added.

“It is not good enough and will clearly specify it in the district court,” he added.

Recent developments occur a month after the Developer in Tornado Alexey Pertsev species was prisoned Under electronic surveillance after a Dutch court suspended his pre -trial detention, allowing her to focus on the appeal of his conviction.

Meanwhile, the co-founder of Tornado Cash Roman storm is currently under bail of $ 2 million and is expected to be tried in April. He was charge By the American authorities in August 2023, with his colleague Roman co-founder Semenov, for having pretended to bleach more than a billion dollars of cryptocurrency via the platform.