<p><span>Today, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission or CFTC) filed a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Binance Holdings Limited, Binance Holdings (“IE”) Limited, Binance (“Services”) Holdings Limited (collectively, “Binance”), and Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao (“Zhao”or “CZ”), and former Chief Compliance Officer, Samuel Lim (“Lim”).</span><span> </span><span>As the CFTC complaint alleges, Zhao with the assistance of Chief Compliance Officer Lim, orchestrated a strategy directing the Binance enterprise to engage in numerous violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and the CFTC regulations, ultimately operating the enterprise through a complex web of firms with the goal of using this operational infrastructure to shield Binance from complying with existing regulations in any of the jurisdictions where the firm operates.</span></p>