TechFlow news, September 27 — According to Cointelegraph, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has achieved a partial victory in its lawsuit against blockchain company Opporty International and its founder Sergii Grybniak. Opporty was accused of selling "unregistered securities" after raising $600,000 through an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018.
On September 24, U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee ruled in a memorandum that certain SEC allegations stand, determining that the "OPP" tokens offered by Opporty and Grybniak in the United States constitute investment contracts and therefore should have been registered under federal securities laws. The SEC also alleged that Opporty's ICO pre-sale violated Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, which governs securities registration and distribution.
Although Grybniak argued that the token sale qualified for exemptions under Regulation D/S, the judge found that Opporty failed to meet these requirements due to conducting "direct sales activities" in the United States, thereby disqualifying them from registration exemption. Opporty's ICO took place between September 2017 and October 2018, attracting approximately 200 investors from the U.S. and abroad.
