Final week, Cointelegraph reported that KuCoin’s main net area, Kucoin.com, had been locked by a Singaporean court docket. In an announcement poste
Final week, Cointelegraph reported that KuCoin’s main net area, Kucoin.com, had been locked by a Singaporean court docket. In an announcement posted on its web site and in its public Telegram channel all through the previous week, KuCoin alleged that our reporting was “unverified” and “unfaithful.” In response, Cointelegraph is now publishing additional proof of its authentic reporting.
Authenticity of the e-mail: Confirmed
Within the authentic article, Cointelegraph contributor Andrew Capon printed a screenshot of a GoDaddy electronic mail displaying that the net area registrar is complying with a court docket order issued by the Excessive Courtroom of Singapore. Cointelegraph has since obtained the unique electronic mail file of the message despatched by GoDaddy.
The e-mail from GoDaddy to KuCoin, displaying its area locked by court docket order in Singapore
Utilizing the brand new file, we have been capable of authenticate the cryptographic signature within the electronic mail headers, proving that the e-mail we obtained did certainly come from the e-mail handle [email protected]. GoDaddy definitively despatched the e-mail Cointelegraph reviewed to electronic mail handle [email protected].
GoDaddy didn’t reply to a request for remark from Cointelegraph.
A website lock is distinct from a website block — kucoin.com remains to be accessible in Singapore. The importance of a website lock is that the area can’t be transferred, stopping the present proprietor from transferring management of the area to a different entity.
The court docket order: What we all know and don’t
As a result of particulars of the Singaporean court docket system, the total contents of the court docket order usually are not publicly accessible at current, neither is the unique grievance within the case. Nevertheless, utilizing Singapore’s eLitigation database, Cointelegraph was capable of confirm the existence of an “order of the court docket” issued by Justice Kannan Ramesh in case quantity HC/OS 342/2020 — the identical case quantity referenced within the GoDaddy electronic mail. That order was issued on March 24, 2020 — six days earlier than GoDaddy’s electronic mail.
Supply: Singapore’s eLitigation Database
The defendants listed in that case are: MEK International Restricted, PhoenixFin Restricted, and PhoenixFin PTE Restricted. As Cointelegraph beforehand reported, these entities have been passing trademark rights for the Kucoin brand between themselves for a while, although they share addresses — together with Lucky Icon, unnamed within the current court docket order.
Furthermore, PhoenixFin PTE is the present proprietor of the Kucoin.com area title, per the Web Company for Assigned Names and Numbers, which lists that firm’s handle as simply “Singapore, Singapore.”
Neither KuCoin representatives nor any of those particular person entities responded to requests for remark for this text.
In accordance with the publicly accessible database, the plaintiff within the case towards KuCoin is Convexity Restricted. Documentation is proscribed, however a Gibraltar-based Convexity shares a reputation in addition to the final 4 digits of its identification quantity with the Convexity within the court docket order.
Cointelegraph reached out to Convexity, however the agency didn’t reply by press time. A person conversant in the matter advised Cointelegraph that Convexity supplied cyber-security companies to KuCoin underneath a long-term contract.
KuCoin’s authorized bother within the U.S.
In the meantime, within the U.S., KuCoin was considered one of a fleet of companies within the crypto house focused by current class motion lawsuits in New York’s Southern District.
To all appearances unrelated to the case in Singapore, the swimsuit in New York alleges securities violations in Kucoin’s itemizing and promotion of a variety of tokens throughout the preliminary coin providing frenzy of 2017-2018:
“KuCoin participated in unlawful solicitations and gross sales of securities for which no registration assertion was in impact, and as to which no exemption from registration was accessible.”