Class-action lawsuit against Binance targets exchange’s futures trading

A group of Italian and international investors have filed a class action lawsuit against the major crypto exchange, Binance, alleging the company violated its own rules for futures trading.

In an announcement made Tuesday, Italy-based legal and advisory firm Lexia Avvocati said it would take legal action against Binance to reclaim damage from trading on the crypto exchange’s futures platform. On behalf of a group of investors, the company and the Swiss blockchain consortium claim that Binance violated its rules for trading crypto derivatives and did not function properly at certain peak trading hours.

According to the local news agency Milano Finanza, the lawsuit revolves around the crypto exchange going offline for several hours on different days – for example on February 8, when Elon Musk announced that Tesla had sold $ 1.5 billion in Bitcoin ( BTC). Investors in the class action claim they lost “tens of millions” of dollars because they couldn’t manage their trading positions or view their balances. They also claim similar failures on April 18, May 5, May 19, May 28 and June 4 resulted in compensation.

Although Binance reportedly allowed users affected by the outages to seek compensation, Lexia said the exchange was offering a “pathetic amount” to its customers who rejected the “ridiculous” proposal. The law firm said investors were willing to dismiss the lawsuit if Binance adequately compensated them before July 12, and also warned against seeking regulatory restrictions on exchanges in the European Union and Switzerland.

Connected: Recent class action lawsuit could cost Binance billions of dollars

Legal action is coming amid the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission and the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, which recently announced regulatory action against Binance for operating in their respective jurisdictions without a proper license. In March, news outlets reported that the exchange may also be under investigation by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission for potential deals from US clients.

Cointelegraph asked Lexia for comment, but received no response at the time of publication. This story can be updated.

Comments are closed.