The Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to delay until April the trial of Do Kwon, the South Korean cofounder of Terraform Labs, to allow for his extradition to the U.S.
In a Monday filing, the regulator agreed to Kwon’s postponement request because he’s already consented to be extradited and could arrive by March. The SEC, according to the filing, took into account that Kwon “wishes to attend his trial” and that if it were to take place on Jan. 29 as scheduled he wouldn’t have time to consult with his attorneys.
“Mr. Kwon will make no additional requests for adjournment of the trial date, even if he is still not able to attend trial on the new date set,” Kwon’s attorneys wrote in a separate filing on Monday.
Kwon’s lawyers also said he would not oppose the court separating his case from that of the company he cofounded, Terraform Labs, although the SEC doesn’t appear interested in doing that. Splitting them up, the agency said, would “unnecessarily require witnesses, including SEC whistleblowers and retail investors with limited financial means, to testify twice about identical facts in different trials.”
Kwon remains in custody in the Balkan country of Montenegro, where he was arrested in March for trying to use a falsified passport to reach Dubai. After the $40 billion collapse of the stablecoin TerraUSD and sister cryptocurrency Luna in 2022, Kwon left Singapore, where he had been based, and reportedly spent some time in Serbia and then Montenegro as an Interpol Red Notice was issued for his arrest.
In December, U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff sided with the SEC and said Kwon and Terraform Labs broke the law by not registering TerraUSD and Luna with the regulator. The 32-year-old disgraced crypto entrepreneur is facing criminal charges in the U.S. meanwhile authorities in his native South Korea also seek to bring him to justice.
