Meet the judges that will preside over Coinbase and Binance’s SEC lawsuits

Court documents have disclosed the identities of the two U.S. District Court Judges who will be overseeing the legal actions initiated by the SEC against Coinbase and Binance.

Filings indicate that the case of SEC v Coinbase will be heard before District Court Judge Jennifer H. Rearden in the Southern District of New York.

Meanwhile, the District of Columbia District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson will be handling the case of SEC v Binance, as per recent documents.

In January 2022, 53-year-old Rearden was nominated by President Joe Biden to become a United States district judge. Last September, her nomination was approved by the Senate.

Although Rearden’s time in office has been brief, she recently made a decision concerning a matter related to cryptocurrency that involved an encounter with Binance.US.

On March 27, Rearden gave his consent to the U.S. DOJ’s urgent request to momentarily block a $1.03 billion transaction between Binance.US and the insolvent crypto lending platform Voyager Digital.

The outcome meant that customers of Voyager who were affected would have to wait longer to receive their payments.

Rearden used the “balance of hardship” test to come to the conclusion that the U.S. government should be favored.

Voyager ultimately found this to be a deal-breaker, and a month later Binance.US withdrew from the agreement, citing the “hostile and uncertain regulatory environment in the United States” as the cause of its reversal.

The bankruptcy plan of Voyager was ultimately accepted on May 17, however, not by Rearden.

Before taking up her position as a judge, Rearden was a commercial litigator and obtained her Juris Doctorate from New York Law School in 1996.

It should be kept in mind that a judge’s background, experience, or decisions in prior cases do not predict the result of future cases.

Judge Jackson, who was 68 years old, was designated as a United States District Judge in March 2011 by former U.S. President Barack Obama. Prior to that, she had obtained her Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School.

Jackson has rendered opinions in 888 cases, but none of them seem to be related to cryptocurrency-related disputes.

She has nevertheless adjudicated on several highly contentious political disputes recently.

In 2019, Judge Jackson imposed 43 and 40 months imprisonments on Paul Manafort Jr and Roger J. Stone Jr, former aides and confidantes of ex-President Donald Trump, in connection with various indictments stemming from a Russia probe.

Trump expressed his disapproval of Jackson and her choice.

In May, Jackson granted the U.S. Department of Justice’s motion to prevent a deposition of Trump connected to two other lawsuits filed by ex-FBI personnel.

Jackson was a U.S. assistant attorney in Washington D.C. from 1980 to 1986.

While at the Department of Justice, she was awarded special achievement awards for her efforts on a number of high-profile murder and sexual assault cases.

A US federal judge has given approval to the Justice Department’s criminal complaint regarding the use of cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions.

On June 5 and 6, the SEC took legal action against Binance and Coinbase, respectively, claiming that they had violated a number of securities regulations, particularly for providing digital assets that the regulator considers to be unregistered securities.

Binance has been alleged to be running unlawfully in the United States.

Binance and Coinbase have both declared that they will “fiercely” oppose the lawsuits brought against them.

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