Key takeaways:
- Do Kwon may not be extradited to the US in time for the company’s trial before the SEC of that nation, his attorneys have stated.
- According to Patton, Do Kwon is unlikely to be present or able to attend the trial, which is set to start on March 25, 2024.
Do Kwon, a co-founder of Terraform Labs, may not be extradited to the US in time for the company’s trial before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of that nation, his attorneys have stated.
Kwon will probably “not be extradited before the end of March” from Montenegro, where he has been since March 2023, according to documents David Patton of Kaplan Hecker & Fink filed on February 26 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The attorney claims that although unexpected errors have postponed the extradition procedure, his firm had anticipated that Kwon would have already been sent to the United States.
According to Patton, Do Kwon is unlikely to be present or able to attend the trial, which is set to start on March 25, 2024. He continued, saying:
“We provide this information purely as a status update for the Court […] we will not seek any adjournment of the trial date regardless of the timing of Mr. Kwon’s ultimate extradition”
According to Goran Rodic, Kwon’s attorney in the Montenegrin court system, the country’s High Court decided on February 21 to extradite the Terraform co-founder to the United States “based on erroneous information.”
The attorney claimed that the Montenegrin court’s decision was predicated on the assertion that the US had sought extradition before South Korea, although this was untrue. Rodic said:
“We have appealed the High Court’s February 21, 2024 decision in light of the illegality of the High Court’s decision ordering his extradition to the United States,”
According to the legal documents, the United States was expected to prevail in the extradition dispute with South Korea. Kwon was detained in Montenegro in March 2023 after utilizing forged travel documents, and he has been there for about a year while extradition requests have been processed. He was apprehended in May 2022, but his whereabouts were mostly unknown until then.
In February 2023, the SEC filed a complaint against Kwon and Terraform. Shortly after his detention in March 2023, the US Attorney’s Office accused the co-founder of Terra with eight criminal offenses. According to the allegations, Kwon and Terraform planned a “multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud” involving the sale of TerraUSD (UST) and Terra.
In December 2023, Judge Jed Rakoff, who is in charge of the civil action, gave summary judgment in favor of the SEC regarding Terraform’s alleged issuance of unregistered securities. The trial is scheduled to begin on March 25, but it has already been postponed to accommodate Kwon. On the same day, former US President Donald Trump is expected to appear in court in the same district to face his first criminal trial.
