The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has dismissed an appeal filed by crypto advocacy organization Coin Center against the US Treasury Department over its Office of Foreign Assets Control’s 2022 sanctions against the Tornado Cash mixing service.
In a Thursday filing, the appellate court granted a motion to vacate a lower court ruling and remand with instructions to dismiss as part of a joint filing with Coin Center and the US Treasury. The dismissal, according to the court, would essentially conclude Coin Center’s legal challenge against the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
In 2022, OFAC added multiple wallet addresses connected to Tornado Cash to its list of sanctioned entities. Coin Center filed a lawsuit alleging that the Treasury Department “exceeded [its] statutory authority” in the sanctions, though there were other lawsuits filed by interested parties, including one from six Tornado Cash users backed by crypto exchange Coinbase.
The price of Tornado Cash’s native token (TORN) briefly surged by more than 14% to $10.55 on the news on Monday, before retracing to trade at $9.47 at the time of publication.
“This is the official end to our court battle over the statutory authority behind the [Tornado Cash] sanctions,” said Coin Center executive director Peter Van Valkenburgh in a Monday X post. “The government was not interested in moving forward and defending their dangerously overbroad interpretation of sanctions laws.”
Cointelegraph reached out to a Coin Center spokesperson but had not received a response at the time of publication.
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In January, the US District Court for the Western District of Texas ordered the repeal of OFAC sanctions against the mixing service, as part of the case filed by the six Tornado Cash users.
The Treasury Department dropped Tornado Cash from its lists of Specially Designated Nationals in March, arguing in court that the case was “moot” and did not require a final judgment.
Tornado Cash developers are still in legal trouble
The appellate court filing came roughly two weeks before Roman Storm, one of the co-founders and developers behind Tornado Cash, is scheduled to appear for a criminal trial in New York federal court.
Storm faces charges of money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter and conspiracy to violate US sanctions. It’s unclear whether the dropped appeal could be used in Storm’s case.
Alexey Pertsev, another Tornado Cash co-founder and developer, has already been found guilty of money laundering in the Netherlands and sentenced to more than five years in prison. Roman Semenov, the other developer named in the same indictment as Storm, was still at large at the time of publication.
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