Crypto firms Bitfinex and Tether have reached an agreement with the New York State Attorney’s Office (NYAG) ending legal efforts that began in mid-2019. According to a statement from New York Attorney General Letitia James, Bitfinex and Tether have agreed to pay $18.5 million as a module of the settlement.
In April 2019, the NYAG bureau alleged that Bitfinex used Tether’s funds to secretly lost $850 million to payment processor Crypto Capital. The lost funds reportedly triggered withdrawal issues for Bitfinex customers in late 2018. Bitfinex said it was not losing any money at the time. Instead, Crypto Capital’s funds were seized by government officials in Portugal and Poland, and Bitfinex has been trying to get those funds back ever since.
As part of today’s deal, Bitfinex and Tether admitted they did nothing wrong. Jason Weinstein, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson and an advisor to Bitfinex and Tether, said the NYAG bureau’s findings were “qualified only by the nature and timing of the absolute disclosures.” Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, used the following terms:
“Contrary to online speculation, there was no evidence that Tether issued Tether without a foothold or manipulated crypto prices.”
Tether will provide quarterly information on its reserves
As part of the settlement agreement, Tether will provide the NYAG bureau and the public with a quarterly reserve base update from USDT, he accepted.
In processing payments, the NYAG office also accepted Bitfinex’s latest loan repayment to Tether. As we reported earlier this month on Kriptokoin.com , Bitfinex announced that it has repaid Tether’s $550 million in remaining loan balance and closed its line of credit. With the reconciliation, the long-standing legal dispute between the two parties ends at some point. Bitfinex and Tether say they have provided the NYAG office with more than 2.5 million pages of documents to close the issue.