The CFTC has been directed by a federal judge in the United States to serve its lawsuit on the two initial founders of the Ooki DAO.
On December 12, District Judge William Orrick directed the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC) to serve Tom Bean and Kyle Kistner, the founders of the forerunner of Ooki DAO, the decentralized trading platform bZeroX.
Bean and Kistner had already settled charges with the Commodities Future Trading Commission in September relating to illicit commodities offerings on bZeroX, while separate charges were filed against Ooki DAO token holders, which were served via a help chat box and a notification on its online forum.
However, after discovering that Bean and Kistner were also the DAO token holders, Judge Orrick reviewed how the CFTC was to serve the case.
“It seems clear in this case that Ooki DAO has actual notice of the litigation,” Judge Orrick wrote. “But to provide the best practicable notice, the CFTC should serve at least one identifiable Token Holder if that is possible.”
The CFTC’s initial approach to filing the case was met with opposition, and members of the crypto sector filed amicus papers in favor of Ooki DAO, arguing that the CFTC should locate Ooki DAO members and serve them personally with the lawsuit.
On December 7, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California convened a hearing with the CFTC and those who filed amicus briefs in an attempt to persuade Judge Orrick to reconsider permitting the CFTC to serve Ooki DAO through its assistance chat box.
“At the hearing, the CFTC asserted it knew that some of Ooki DAO’s Token Holders reside and conduct business in the United States because the two founders of Ooki DAO’s predecessor entity, bZeroX LLC, are Token Holders who reside in the United States,” Orrick wrote.
“This was new information to me,” he added. “Neither the complaint nor the CFTC’s Motion for Alternative Service mentions that the former founders, [Bean and Kistner], are or have been Token Holders.”
“The CFTC is now ORDERED to serve Bean and Kistner, in their roles as Ooki DAO Token Holders,” he concluded.
The CFTC settled charges against Bean and Kistner on September 22 for “illegally offering leveraged and margined retail commodities trades in digital assets” via bZeroX.
Simultaneously, it launched a complaint against the DAO, stating that it used the same software as bZeroX after taking control of it, violating “the same laws as the respondents.”
Even inside the CFTC, the agency was chastised for initiating the action without clear regulatory rules, with CFTC commissioner Summer Mersinger dubbing it a “regulation by enforcement” strategy.
