Telegram Consents to Give SEC Bank Records in Ongoing TON Lawsuit

Telegram has finally given in, pledging to turn over its bank records, communications, and other information to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. This stands as another part of the ongoing legal battle between the US regulator and the messaging app’s startup. This legal battle started due to Telegram’s token sale, valued at $1.7 billion, back in 2018 is claimed to have violated the US Securities Law.

Court Case Continues

According to the court filing done on Friday, Telegram has finally agreed to turn over certain documents as part of the discovery process in the court case despite initial resistance. Furthermore, Telegram will answer questions regarding the bank records that had already been produced.

Furthermore, Telegram will share information in regards to whether or not it had dispersed assets to the various pre-sale customers. On top of this, they will provide information regarding assets that had been received from these investors, but only in relation to their purchase agreements’ termination.

Cooperation Agreed Upon

The filing went into detail, stating that Telegram will provide the SEC with notice to any form of amendments made to the Purchase Agreements. On top of this, it will give notice of any final written agreements that were entered into with the Initial Purchasers, in regards to or coming out of the Purchase Agreements themselves. They will do so within two days of such an amendment or final agreement being made, according to the filing.

Furthermore, the company will provide the SEC with communications regarding its private placement agreements’ termination, and will do so on the 20th of May, at the latest.

TON Labs Taking Action

The agreement was submitted by the SEC and Telegram on Thursday, the 7th of May.  A judge had signed off on the agreement on Friday, as per the court records states. The news itself comes a day after the independent entity, TON Labs, announced that it would soon launch a hard fork of the TON blockchain with its own form of token, the Free Ton coin.

The new fork from TON labs comes as a direct response from Telegram’s announcement of postponing the actual network for another year. As it stands now, the new launch date for the network is in April of 2021. Furthermore, Telegram had offered to refund its clients, giving two forms of doing so. The clients can either request an immediate refund and regain 72% of their initial funds, or they can lend their funds to Telegram. The loan will span a year, and will allow investors to recover 110% of their initial investments.

While Telegram had initially stated that it would pay its investors in GRAMs, the token that started all of this, it later said that this would be impossible. Furthermore, US investors of Telegram will have their investments refunded immediately, with no option to lend to Telegram available to them.