arbitration

According to a survey by the Financial Times, the Polish state-owned energy company Orlen had prepaid $230 million to the Dubai trader Hannon International for the purchase of approximately 6 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil, but ultimately received only about 500,000 barrels of fuel oil. During the transaction, part of the funds was converted into USDT and delivered to the Venezuelan side through intermediaries.Hannon stated that at least $132 million in USDT was given to two intermediaries, after which the two intermediaries went missing. After accounting for expenses such as tanker leasing and legal fees, the Polish government estimates that Orlen's total loss amounts to at least $424 million. Orlen is currently seeking to recover the advance payment through arbitration.

According to CNBC, Gemini Space Station won a legal victory in August, with arbitrators ruling that the cryptocurrency exchange platform did not mislead users and is not responsible for the collapse of its Earn lending program. The claim was made by a user of the digital asset company's lending program Earn at the end of 2024. According to the ruling, there was insufficient evidence to prove that Gemini lied to customers or was negligent in its due diligence with its main lending partner, Genesis Global Capital.The Earn program was launched in 2021, allowing users to earn up to 7.4% annualized returns by lending cryptocurrency. Under this program, Gemini lent assets to institutional borrowers, with Genesis acting as an intermediary. However, in November 2022, Gemini suspended withdrawals from the Earn program, angering some of its more than 300,000 users. This move came shortly after Genesis suspended new loan issuance and redemptions due to a liquidity crisis caused by the downturn in the cryptocurrency market that year. After the freeze on Earn withdrawals, several customers filed legal complaints against Gemini. The New York Attorney General also sued Gemini over the Earn program and reached a $50 million settlement with the company in 2024.In February 2024, Gemini announced that the company had reached a "principled settlement" with Genesis and other creditors regarding the Genesis bankruptcy case. Three months later, Earn users received $2.18 billion in digital assets in physical form, equivalent to 97% of the digital assets owed to Earn users, which is $1 billion more than when Genesis suspended withdrawals in 2022.

According to the Financial Times, based on the latest publicly available court documents, the stablecoin issuer Circle had banned the crypto fund Heka Funds, supported by Tether, at the end of 2023 due to suspicions that it was manipulating the market through large-scale arbitrage operations and helping Tether expand its market share. The documents show that during the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis in 2023, USDC briefly fell below the $1 peg. Heka continuously bought discounted USDC in large quantities and redeemed it for cash from Circle. Circle believed that Heka's redemption scale far exceeded that of other market participants and suspected that the related funds ultimately flowed to Tether to help expand its USDT market size.Arbitration documents also revealed that Tether had invested about $800 million in Heka, accounting for about 75% of the fund's assets, and waived the stablecoin minting fees. The arbitrator found that Heka did not truthfully disclose its supportive relationship with Tether and was aware that the related information would raise concerns for Circle. In 2024, Heka initiated arbitration due to its account being frozen, claiming approximately $49 million in lost profits. In February of this year, the arbitrator dismissed all of Heka's claims, determining that it had engaged in malicious behavior and ordered it to pay Circle about $166,000 in attorney and expert fees. Heka denied any market manipulation and stated that it had never been subject to regulatory investigation; Circle declined to comment, and Tether did not respond to media requests for comment.

According to Reuters, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter in Manhattan dismissed Binance's request, rejecting the demand to resolve claims from customers who accused the trading platform of illegally selling unregistered tokens and causing significant losses through arbitration.Judge Andrew Carter of the Manhattan U.S. District Court stated that customers could file lawsuits in court for claims arising up to February 20, 2019, because Binance failed to adequately notify users that it had modified its terms of use, requiring disputes to be resolved through arbitration and waiving the right to sue collectively.A Binance spokesperson, in response to Judge Carter's ruling, stated, "Binance will vigorously defend the remaining limited claims in this case, which are baseless." Customers who suffered losses due to the seven tokens ELF, EOS, FUN, ICX, OMG, QSP, and TRX accused Binance of failing to warn about the "significant risks" associated with purchases as required by federal and state securities laws, and are seeking to recover the amounts paid.

ChainCatcher news, according to TheMinerMag, early Bitcoin developer Adam Back and two affiliated companies are requesting a U.S. court to enforce a $28 million arbitration award against Chinese mining chip manufacturer Innosilicon.According to the complaint, Innosilicon was aware of hidden cracks in the chips of these machines as early as March 2018 (a few months before delivery), yet still completed the delivery in September 2018. The Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre ruled that Innosilicon breached all three contracts and ordered Innosilicon to compensate for the losses: 425.98 bitcoins to Blockstream, 1,393.79 bitcoins to Thigmotropism, and 51.84 bitcoins to Back.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, two OpenSea users have accused the NFT trading platform OpenSea of selling unregistered securities, but they abandoned the proposed class action after a judge allowed the company to seek arbitration.On November 7, Anthony Shnayderman and Itai Bronshtein filed a voluntary motion to withdraw their securities lawsuit against Ozone Networks (operating under the name OpenSea) in federal court in Florida. Previously, Judge Cecilia Altonaga had permitted OpenSea to file a motion to compel the two to arbitrate in an order last month.OpenSea insists on compelling the two users to arbitrate and claimed in an October filing that they agreed to its terms of use, which state that all claims will be resolved by an arbitrator— including whether the claims should be arbitrated in the first place. In the October filing, the NFT marketplace added that it "intends to take swift action to compel the plaintiffs to arbitrate their claims in the agreed forum" and will appeal any dismissal by the court, thereby staying the case.