Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) issued a warning to employees about their internal communications, according to reports, following a lawsuit filed Monday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“Everything you say could one day end up in court (or on the internet),” he wrote to employees according to a translated copy of a memo seen by Daily Planet Daily THURSDAY.
SEC Sues Binance and Its CEO Over Alleged Securities Violations
Executive warning follows recent SEC statement flee of chat logs captured between employees, including former corporate compliance officer “Sam Lim” and business development manager “Alvin”.
During their conversations, the employees privately discussed ‘dumping’ their BNB tokens before they crashed, and casually admitted to ‘operating an unlicensed stock exchange’, which is entirely consistent with SEC allegations against Binance.
Lim was also caught explaining how an entity could onboard as a client of US platform Binance, but be secretly allowed to trade on Binance.com’s international exchange through a “special arrangement”, which CZ “would certainly agree too”.
In his letter to staff, CZ dismissed the chat logs as a “complaint” made by two people, but said the ordeal “has done a lot of damage” to the company’s reputation and warned that the SEC would probably ask for the chat history of the exchange. as part of its investigation.
The CEO clarified that he does not watch employee conversations and that this is the first time he has seen these logs. “It’s ridiculous for the SEC to use this as a poster, but we’ll let the lawyers handle it,” he added.
Binance Transferred Billions Through CZ Controlled US Bank Accounts, Says SEC
The translated note on Odaily also shows Zhao saying that employees “unsatisfied with working at Binance” should “seriously consider” their career options.
Binance did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation from Decrypt.
Thursday, CZ denied SEC Claims Binance Redirected billions of dollars in client funds from Binance and Binance US to his own company, Merit Peak. “All user funds are accounted for and have never left the http://Binance.US platform (unless users opt out of course), ever,” he said.