The Main Legal Officer at Coinbase Slams the US Department of the Treasury’s Action to Reject the Tornado Cash Legal Action
Paul Grewal, the chief legal counsel at Coinbase, voices his discontent regarding the US Treasury Department’s endeavor to dismiss the Tornado Cash legal proceedings, asserting that the matter has lost its significance.
As a reminder, the Treasury Department formally took off Tornado Cash, along with a few connected smart contract locations, from its sanctions register on March 21. This cancels the preliminary penalties enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control in August of 2022.
The watchdogs had earlier blamed the platform for supporting money laundering, including deals connected to the North Korean Lazarus Group.
This occurs after a federal appeals court verdict in November 2024, which declared that the Treasury Department went beyond its power when it penalized the crypto mixer’s unmodifiable smart contracts.
Following the March 21 judgment, the Treasury Department stated that since Tornado Cash and its related smart contracts are no longer included on the register, the matter should be regarded as settled, thus rendering the legal action essentially “irrelevant.”
The Treasury Department maintains that the court should evaluate whether it still possesses authority over the case. It contends that, like all federal courts, it has a “continuous duty to reassure itself” concerning Article III jurisdiction, thus the “briefing on mootness is justified.”
However, Grewal responded in a March 24 post on X, claiming that this method does not conform with the legislation.
> “Power doesn’t simply vanish. It struggles until it is unable to struggle anymore […] After unwillingly taking TC off the register, they now assert they’ve removed any necessity for a conclusive court decision. However, that is not the legislation, and they are aware of it.”
As stated by Paul Grewal, the Principal Legal Representative at Coinbase, the removal of Tornado Cash from the sanctions directory serves as a prime illustration of the “voluntary termination” concept. This concept implies that a defendant halts the challenged conduct in an endeavor to circumvent a judicial pronouncement. March 25, 2025: Refinance Percentages Decline Marginally Once More
Grewal referenced a Supreme Court verdict from 2024 concerning an American national eliminated from a no-fly roster. The court determined that the matter was not inconsequential because the administration neglected to assure that the person would not be relisted.
He contends that the Treasury Agency has not furnished such pledges, and the concept is only relevant when there is an explicit assurance that the measure will not reoccur.
“That’s insufficient, and we’ll clarify that to the district tribunal,” he included.
While Tornado Cash might have been detached from the sanctions directory, Grewal underscores that the Treasury Agency has “not assured” it won’t be appended anew.
Concurrently, Tornado Cash co-creator Roman Storm is presently released on a $2 million bond and is anticipated to confront trial in April. U.S. officials indicted him and another co-creator, Roman Semenov, in August 2023 with purportedly assisting to sanitize over $1 billion in cryptocurrency via the platform.
These contemporary advancements arrive a month after Tornado Cash programmer Alexey Pertsev was discharged under electronic surveillance in the Netherlands after a Dutch tribunal suspended his pre-trial confinement, permitting him to concentrate on appealing his judgment.
