A federal judge ruled that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must pay legal costs for DEBT Box, a Utah-based crypto company the SEC brought a suit against, finding that the regulator had committed a"gross abuse of power" in its efforts to secure a temporary restraining order.alleging fraud, securing a temporary asset freeze and restraining order against the company.
The SEC will be required to pay defendants' and receivers' fees as part of the court's sanctions, the judge wrote. "Each piece of support the Commission offered in seeking the TRO – and then later reiterated in defending the TRO – proved to be some combination of false, mischaracterized, and misleading," the order said."Further, the Commission not only repeated and affirmed its misrepresentations in the face of contrary evidence, it presented new falsehoods to the court in an effort to subtly shift from its previous misrepresentations without acknowledging its previous errors.