US Court Rejects Gemini, CFTC Bid to Void Sanctions Settlement

A U.S. court has rejected Gemini’s joint request with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to undo an earlier sanctions settlement. The judge found that the regulator’s admission of problems in the case was not enough to overturn the agreement.

Bloomberg reported on October 15 that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York denied Gemini and the CFTC’s request to vacate the consent order. He cited the fact that Gemini had entered the settlement voluntarily three weeks before trial.

The CFTC sued Gemini in 2022, alleging the crypto exchange provided false or misleading information during the review of a Bitcoin futures product. In January 2025, Gemini agreed to pay a $5 million civil penalty and accept a permanent injunction barring it from making false or misleading statements to the CFTC in the future.

The CFTC’s position shifted after the Trump administration took office. The agency said an internal review found problems with the reliability of the evidence and the way the case was handled, and in May it joined Gemini in seeking to vacate the settlement order. It also said the case would not have been brought under the agency’s current enforcement standards.

Gemini and the CFTC argued that the settlement was inconsistent with basic principles of fair enforcement. But Hellerstein ruled that those circumstances alone were not enough to set aside the existing order. Even if Gemini came to regret its decision after obtaining additional material following the settlement, he said, the facts had not changed enough to make continued enforcement of the order unfair.