South Korean Bitcoin lender Delio is reportedly preparing for an administrative lawsuit against regulators for the wrong interpretation of law leading to an investigation and hefty fine against the crypto lending firm.
Bitcoin lender Delio said the allegations of fraud and embezzlement levied by the Financial Service Committee (FSC) are baseless, according to a report published in a local daily. The crypto lender claimed that the regulator implied the law unreasonably in a situation where there were no clear regulations for virtual asset deposit and management products.
The report revealed that the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) recommended the dismissal of Delio CEO Jeong Sang-ho through a sanctions announcement on Sept. 1. Delio claimed that this was a clear indication that the financial authorities were putting pressure on Delio to close down the business rather than giving them a chance to revive. The FIU also imposed a three-month business suspension on Delio and a fine of $1.34 million (1.83 billion won.)
Delio CEO Jeong Sang-ho said that these FIU sanctions leave a lot of room for unreasonable legal interpretation and arbitrary application,” and such behaviour by financial authorities could kill the domestic virtual asset industry.”
The major issue of conflict remains the interpretation of the existing laws, around whether a lending company that lends cash using virtual assets as collateral is considered a virtual asset business operator and whether the act of imposing a lock-up constitutes ‘storage’ of virtual assets under the Special Financial Services Act.
Delio argued that it is unclear whether virtual asset deposits and management products are considered financial products under the current law. One of the lawyers for the firm noted that there are no provisions for virtual asset-related laws and regulations regarding the virtual asset management business.
The lawyer said that the FIU arbitrarily interpreted virtual asset deposits and management products as financial investment products and sanctioned them which is the case of wrong interpretation of the law.
Nomura’s crypto arm gains regulatory green light in Dubai to offer institutional OTC crypto options, expanding the UAE’s footprint in global digital derivatives.
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has told Sky News that councils that believe they don’t have a problem with grooming gangs are “idiots” – as she denied Elon Musk influenced the decision to have a national inquiry on the subject.
The minister said: “I don’t follow Elon Musk’s advice on anything although maybe I too would like to go to Mars.
“Before anyone even knew Elon Musk’s name, I was working with the victims of these crimes.”
Mr Musk, then a close aide of US President Donald Trump, sparked a significant political row with his comments – with the Conservative Party and Reform UK calling for a new public inquiry into grooming gangs.
At the time, Ms Phillips denied a request for a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham on the basis that it should be done at a local level.
But the government announced a national inquiry after Baroness Casey’s rapid audit on grooming gangs, which was published in June.
Asked if she thought there was, in the words of Baroness Casey, “over representation” among suspects of Asian and Pakistani men, Ms Phillips replied: “My own experience of working with many young girls in my area – yes there is a problem. There are different parts of the country where the problem will look different, organised crime has different flavours across the board.
“But I have to look at the evidence… and the government reacts to the evidence.”
Ms Phillips also said the home secretary has written to all police chiefs telling them that data collection on ethnicity “has to change”, to ensure that it is always recorded, promising “we will legislate to change the way this [collection] is done if necessary”.
Operation Beaconport has since been established, led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), and will be reviewing more than 1,200 closed cases of child sexual exploitation.
Ms Phillips revealed that at least “five, six” councils have asked to be a part of the national review – and denounced councils that believed they don’t have a problem with grooming gangs as “idiots”.
“I don’t want [the inquiry] just to go over places that have already had inquiries and find things the Casey had already identified,” she said.
She confirmed that a shortlist for a chair has been drawn up, and she expects the inquiry to be finished within three years.
Ms Phillips’s comments come after she announced £426,000 of funding to roll out artificial intelligence tools across all 43 police forces in England and Wales to speed up investigations into modern slavery, child sex abuse and county lines gangs.
Some 13 forces have access to the AI apps, which the Home Office says have saved more than £20m and 16,000 hours for investigators.
The apps can translate large amounts of text in foreign languages and analyse data to find relationships between suspects.