Telegram ’s fight with the market regulator United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has taken another turn.
SEC has reported that Telegram has failed to submit its financial reports regarding the ICO token sale held two years ago, as requested.
Request of Financial Details
The market regulator filed a court order on Jan 2, to constrain Telegram to submit the financial details on how the funds raised were spent. To their surprise, Telegram has refused to submit the requested financial details.
“Defendants are now refusing to disclose the bank records concerning how they have spent the $1.7 billion they raised from investors in the past two years and to answer questions about the disposition of investor funds.”
The financial reports were supposed to help the regulator in two ways; First, to see how the company has spent its ICO cash, and, secondly, to help in the on-going case against the messaging platform, over the sale of unlicensed securities.
“The requested bank records are highly relevant to the issues in dispute in this case…” said the regulator in a statement.
Storyline
The messaging platform Telegram held two token sales back in 2017, raising a total of $1.7 Billion. The initial coin offering token sales were supposed to help the company build the Telegram Open Network(TON) blockchain.
Gram coin official launch was supposed to happen towards the end of October 2019, but the company had to push it forward due to SEC’s concerns that the company’s ICO offering did not comply with the regulations.
According to SEC, Gram coin is categorized as security, but Telegram did not register it as such.
The market watchdog went ahead and filed a case in court against Telegram in October over its token sales, which, according to SEC, are unlicensed securities. This case is still on-going.
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