In documents filed with the SEC, attorneys from Gibson Dunn and Latham &Watkins allege that Gary Gensler offered to act as an advisor to the cryptocurrency exchange in several conversations with the CEO and top executives at Binance in March 2019. Gensler met with Changpeng Zhao in Japan in March, the statement said.
At the time, Gensler was teaching at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He was appointed head of the SEC in 2021 by President Joe Biden, and in the last year Gensler has come down hard on the crypto industry, suing numerous companies for allegedly selling unregistered securities.
Lawyers note that Zhao continued to keep in touch with Gensler even after the March meeting. At the request of the future SEC chairman, Zhao interviewed Gensler as part of a course on cryptocurrency. Because of this connection, Binance’s lawyers asked Gensler to withdraw from action against the company, but did not receive confirmation from the SEC. An SEC spokesman told CNBC that “the chairman is well aware of his ethical obligations, including any obligation to recuse himself, and is in full compliance.”
Earlier this week, the SEC filed 13 charges against Binance and Changpeng Zhao. The lawsuit alleges that the company failed to limit access to its trading floor to U.S. customers and “misrepresented critical information, thereby misleading investors about its market controls.”
Recently, amid an SEC lawsuit against Binance, the exchange’s US division delisted ten trading pairs and suspended its OTC service.<br