The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will close one of its eleven regional offices after a federal judge ordered the regulator to pay roughly $1.8 million in attorney and receivership fees.
In a June 4 notice, the SEC <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2024-67" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">said</a> it would close its Salt Lake Regional Office in 2024—just one of eleven regional offices in the country. The commission said the closure was due to “significant attrition” at the office and planned to shift operations to Denver. 
The announcement came roughly a week after Judge Robert Shelby <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/judge-order-debt-box-sec-fees">dismissed the SEC’s civil lawsuit</a> against Digital Licensing, the firm doing business as DEBT Box. He also signed off on an order requiring the SEC to pay roughly $1 million for attorney fees and costs and $750,000 for receiver fees and costs.
The SEC filed its lawsuit against DEBT Box in July 2023, alleging the firm perpetrated an illegal $50 million crypto scheme. However, in March, Judge Shelby found the SEC “engaged in bad faith conduct” over a temporary restraining order to freeze DEBT Box’s assets. The judge <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-s-conduct-in-debtbox-case-constituted-a-gross-abuse-of-power">ordered sanctions against the SEC</a>, requiring the regulator to cover “all attorney fees and costs arising from the improvidently entered ex parte relief.”
Related: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-senators-sec-actions-debt-box">US senators call SEC actions in DEBT Box case ‘unconscionable’</a>
Two SEC lawyers — based at the Salt Lake Regional Office — <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-lawyers-resign-gross-abuse-power-crypto-case">reportedly resigned over the handling</a> of the case. It’s unclear whether their departure may have contributed to the “significant attrition” to which the commission referred.&nbsp;
“[T]he SEC has decided to shut down [the Salt Lake City] office in direct response to the ‘gross misuse of power’ based on the dismissal of the D.E.B.T. Box case that if revisited by the SEC, must be brought back before Judge Shelby to ensure there is no misconduct or abuse of power,” DEBT Box chief marketing officer&nbsp;Miguel Francis-Santiago told Cointelegraph.
The commission has ongoing enforcement actions against several crypto firms, including Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and Ripple. In May, lawyers for Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon announced that they had <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/terraform-do-kwon-fraud-settlement-sec">reached an in-principle settlement</a> in its case with the SEC.
Magazine: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/godzilla-vs-kong-can-sec-prevail-against-crypto-legal-firepower/">Godzilla vs. Kong: SEC faces fierce battle against crypto’s legal firepower</a>
Update (June 4 at 9:25 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from DEBT box.

SEC to close regional office after judge dismisses DEBT box case

Cointelegraph

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