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Regulation and Compliance > Federal Regulation

California DOJ Fines Robinhood $3.9M in First-Ever Crypto Enforcement Action

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The California Department of Justice said it has slapped Robinhood with a $3.9 million penalty after finding that the crypto and stock trading platform did not allow customers access to the cryptocurrency in their wallets, misled customers about the best crypto trade rates, and was not transparent about who held their assets.

The settlement marks the first public enforcement action by the state DOJ against a crypto company.

“Our investigation and settlement with Robinhood should send a strong message: Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store or a cryptocurrency company, you must adhere to California’s consumer and investor protection laws,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement accompanying the late Wednesday announcement.

Under the settlement, Menlo Park, California-based Robinhood did not admit or deny the allegations.

Bonta’s office, which began investigating Robinhood in 2021, said that from 2018 to 2022 customers holding crypto in their accounts were not able to transfer those assets to their own wallets and had to sell the currency to get off the platform.

In addition, Robinhood’s pledge that it would connect to multiple trading venues to ensure customers buying or selling crypto obtained the best price was not always true, the DOJ said.

The company also failed to keep customers’ assets secure and did not tell them that at times it arranged for other crypto exchanges to hold customer assets for extended periods, investigators found.

“We are pleased to put this matter behind us,” Robinhood Markets General Counsel Lucas Moskowitz told Law.com in a statement late Wednesday. “The settlement fully resolves the attorney general’s concerns related to historical practices, and we look forward to continuing to make crypto more accessible and affordable to everyone.”

As part of the settlement, Robinhood agreed to allow customers to transfer cryptocurrency from the exchange to their own wallets and to be more transparent about how it handles trades and where it stores customers’ assets.

Robinhood’s handling of crypto assets also is under scrutiny by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In May, the agency sent the company a “Wells notice” indicating that it was preparing to sue the company over its cryptocurrency listings, custody of assets and platform operations.

A Wells notice does not always result in a lawsuit, and Robinhood will have the opportunity to make a case for why the SEC should not sue.

Robinhood finds itself in regulators’ crosshairs despite efforts by Dan Gallagher, who joined the company in 2020 and is its chief legal, compliance and corporate affairs officers, to bolster its compliance culture and work collaboratively with regulators.

Gallagher was an SEC commissioner from 2011 to 2015, and his general counsel, Moskowitz, was chief of staff to SEC Chair Jay Clayton from 2017 to 2019.

Credit: Bloomberg


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