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The prime minister has said a new law will be introduced so people wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal are “swiftly exonerated and compensated”.

In the first Prime Minister’s Questions of the year, Rishi Sunak said he plans to make sure those convicted as part of the Post Office scandal get exonerated through an act of parliament.

As well as announcing new legislation, which the postal affairs minister said would take “some weeks to deliver”, the prime minister said upfront compensation of £75,000 will be awarded to the 555 postmasters who took their case to the High Court in 2019 as a group litigation.

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The government has come under increased pressure to take action on the Horizon scandal following the airing of ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office last week.

More than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted for accounting errors relying on data from the faulty Horizon software.

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Teju Adedayo recalls how she had to warn her children she may go to prison.

Once they are exonerated, the government has confirmed victims will be eligible for at least £600,000 compensation, depending on their circumstances.

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Former sub-postmaster reacts to law that could see victims to be exonerated and compensated

The scheme applies to England and Wales.

More on this story:
Former Post Office boss to hand back her CBE
Key figures in Post Office IT scandal

Protesters outside the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London in 2022
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Protesters outside the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London in 2022

‘The victims must get justice’

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Sunak said: “Mr Speaker, this is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history.

“People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own.

“The victims must get justice and compensation. Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry is undertaking crucial work to undo, to expose what went wrong, and we’ve paid almost £150m in compensation to over to 2,500 victims.”

Mr Sunak said the new legislation would ensure victims are “swiftly exonerated and compensated”.

The prime minister’s spokesman said the intention was to have the legislation introduced within weeks and compensation paid out by the end of the year.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, London. Picture date: Wednesday January 10, 2024.
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The prime minister announced the measurs in the House of Commons


How will new legislation work?

Kevin Hollinrake, the postal minister, provided an update on the government’s plan to the Commons after PMQs.

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Minister wary of ‘interfering with courts’

He said all those claiming compensation will sign a statement of truth to say they did not commit the crimes of which they were accused.

“Anyone subsequently found to have signed such a statement untruthfully will be putting themselves at risk of prosecution or fraud,” Mr Hollinrake said.

The minister admitted this was not “foolproof”, but it was a “proportionate” device “which respects the ordeal with which these people have already suffered”.

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Postmasters ‘used as guinea pigs’ says IT expert

He also said the government was considering whether people who had their appeals refused already would have their convictions overturned.

Numerous ways to fast-track the overturning of convictions had been mooted prior to today’s announcement.

Some had called for a mass appeal before the Court of Appeal, while others wanted legislation to overturn the convictions or even a pardon from the King.

It is not clear exactly how the mechanics of the Commons overturning hundreds of prosecutions will work.

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Keir Starmer during PMQs
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Sir Keir welcomed the news

Labour welcomes PM’s plan

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, indicated earlier this week that his party would support an attempt through law to overturn the convictions.

Responding to Mr Sunak today, Sir Keir said the scandal “is a huge injustice”

“People lost their lives, their liberty, and their livelihood, and they’ve been waiting far too long for the truth, for justice, and for compensation,” he added.

“So I’m glad the prime minister is putting forward a proposal.

“We will look at the details, and I think it’s the job of all of us to make sure that it delivers the justice that is so needed.”

James Strong, the director of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, told Sky News that the reaction to the programme has been “unbelievable” and “astonishing”.

He told presenter Mark Austin: “For it to transcend into the national consciousness in quite the way it’s done, quite the scale it’s done, it’s taken everybody by surprise who made it. So we’re thrilled and delighted, but slightly shocked as well.”

He added: “We strove and we put everything into it to make it… as compulsive and as watchable as possible.”

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Last year, the government announced that every wrongly convicted sub-postmaster and sub-postmistress would be offered £600,000 in compensation.

In 2019, the Post Office agreed to pay £58m to 555 sub-postmaster and sub-mistresses.

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Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

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Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.

While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.

On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.

Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.

Tariffs compound existing mining challenges

Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.

Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.

According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo

“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.

He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Source: Summer Meng

“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.

Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.

BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”

Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.

“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Source: jmhorp

Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.

Related: Bitcoin mining using coal energy down 43% since 2011 — Report

“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.

As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.

Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.

Magazine: Bitcoin ATH sooner than expected? XRP may drop 40%, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 23 – 29

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange $1.2M for past AML breaches

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange .2M for past AML breaches

Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange .2M for past AML breaches

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.

Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.

While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.

OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.

The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

Magazine: Stablecoin for cyber-scammers launches, Sony L2 drama: Asia Express

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global 8K for wash trading

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global 8K for wash trading

Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts continue targeting unlawful cryptocurrency market practices, with a local court fining crypto financial services firm CLS Global.

A federal court in Boston on April 2 sentenced CLS Global on criminal charges related to fraudulent manipulation of crypto trading volume, according to an announcement from the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office.

In addition to a $428,059 fine, the court prohibited CLS Global from offering services in the US for a probation period of three years.

CLS Global, a crypto market maker registered in the United Arab Emirates, in January pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and one count of wire fraud.

CLS agreed to manipulate the FBI’s “trap token” NexFundAI

The charges against CLS Global followed an undercover law enforcement operation involving NexFundAI, a token created by the FBI as part of a sting operation in May 2024.

CLS Global was among at least three firms that took the FBI’s bait and agreed to provide “market maker services” for NexFundAI, including a fraudulent scheme to attract investors to purchase the token.

In October 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against CLS and its employee, Andrey Zhorzhes. The US securities regulator also filed complaints against two other NexFundAI manipulators, Hong Kong-linked ZM Quant Investment and Russia-linked Gotbit Consulting.

CLS Global’s profile

According to CLS Global CEO Filipp Veselov, the company was founded in 2017 to fill in a “huge gap in the market for high-quality market-making solutions and trading consulting.”

Prior to CLS, Veselov worked at the Russian cryptocurrency exchange platform Latoken, which is advertised as a “global digital asset exchange” and has about 370,000 followers on X.

The CLS team also includes chief revenue officer Pavel Singaevskii, who previously served as sales manager at Stex, a crypto platform that reportedly ceased operations without warning in 2023.

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

Source: CLS Global

According to CLS Global’s X page, the platform continues operating and has more than 110,000 followers at the time of publication.

How much wash trading is in crypto?

Wash trading is an illegal practice involving artificially inflating trading volume by repeatedly buying and selling the same asset, generating a misleading perception of demand.

According to a January 2025 report by the US blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the crypto market has at least $2.6 billion in estimated wash traded volumes, or just about 2% of total daily crypto trading volumes, as reported by CoinGecko.

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

Estimated wash trade volume in crypto. Source: Chainalysis

Related: Russian Gotbit founder strikes $23M plea deal with US prosecutors

Some studies indicate that wash trading makes up a bigger share of the crypto market.

In 2022, the US National Bureau of Economic Research reported that illegal wash trading may account for as much as 70% of average trading volumes on unregulated exchanges.

Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again

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