US Government Slaps $1,200,000 Penalty on San Francisco Crypto Exchange Following Violation Of Russia/Ukraine Sanctions

It has been just revealed the fact that the US government slapped a $1,2 million penalty on a San Francisco crypto exchange. The reason was violating the Russia-Ukraine sanctions. Check out the following reports about this below.

A San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange has agreed to pay over $1.2 million as a settlement for violating US sanctions related to Russia and Ukraine.

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has confirmed that CoinList Markets (CLM) processed hundreds of transactions that violated the government’s embargo policies.

Although the exchange did comply with some of the sanction measures, such as denying access to users with IP addresses in prohibited jurisdictions and rejecting applications from users who presented IDs from and provided addresses in sanctioned nations, it still faced potential civil liability for the violations.

CLM’s screening procedures were insufficient as some users residing in Russia were able to open an account by providing Crimean addresses, according to OFAC.

“CoinList Markets LLC (‘CLM’), a San Francisco, California-based virtual currency exchange, has agreed to pay $1,207,830 to settle its potential civil liability arising from processing 989 transactions on behalf of users ordinarily resident in Crimea between April 2020 and May 2022, in apparent violation of OFAC’s Russia/Ukraine sanctions.”

CLM could face up to $327,306,583 in civil penalties, but OFAC says the settlement amount considers CLM’s remedial measures to improve compliance.

“In view of the individual facts of this case, including CLM’s financial circumstances, $300,000 of the settlement amount will be suspended pending satisfactory completion of CLM’s compliance commitments as agreed to by CLM as part of this settlement.”

The notes continued and said the following statement:

“Moreover, as partial satisfaction of the settlement amount, CLM has also agreed to invest $300,000 in additional sanctions compliance controls, including with respect to enhanced screening controls and additional compliance staff.”