Binance.US and the US Securities and Exchange Commission have agreed to create an arrangement that would save the exchange from freezing all of its assets.
On June 14, Bloomberg reported that US District Judge Amy Berman-Jackson referred the two organizations to a magistrate judge for a compromise arrangement that would protect customer funds without having to shut down the exchange.
"A complete shutdown of it would have a significant impact not only on the company but on the digital asset market as a whole," Jackson said at the June 13 hearing. Judge Jackson noted that she will not make a final decision on the SEC's motion for a temporary restraining order until the two parties resolve the issue with the magistrate. An update on the status of negotiations with magistrates is scheduled to close on June 15 after business hours.
Additionally, she noted that the SEC and Binance.US appeared to be “not too far away” when it came to an agreement on the matter. Ahead of Judge Jackson's decision at the hearing, former SEC enforcement attorney John Read Stark told his 20,000 Twitter followers that there was "a lot of conflict between the parties" and wanted out of the hearing meeting. "That doesn't mean the judge can't order a compromise and find common ground," Stark explained. The SEC filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order with Binance.US on June 6 after accusing Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao of having access to Binance.US customer funds.
Regulators accused Zhao of moving $12 billion in Binance funds through an entity he controlled called Merit Peak. In a joint memo filed ahead of a June 12 hearing on the restraining order, both Binance.US and Zhao denied claims that the funds had been mishandled. They accused the SEC of being "unable to identify any single instance" of Binance. US customer funds being misused. "In fact, there is no 'emergency' here at all, other than ones created by the SEC for its own purposes."
