 won the lawsuit against Gaw Miners and ZenMiner Cloud for about $ 11 million.
The trial was held late in May, but the entity revealed the result on June 5. The SEC's victory was mostly due to legal breach, in addition to the scams incurred by the aforementioned mining companies, after having been accused of ponzi scheme by the SEC in December of 2015.
The SEC is an agency of the United States Government that is responsible for enforcing federal securities laws and regulating the nation's industry and financial markets, as well as stock exchanges, and other asset markets. While Gaw Miners and ZenMiner Cloud were sister mining companies of criptomonedas, currently extinct.
Basically, the result comes from the SEC's legal assault against Gaw Miners and its CEO Homero Josh Garza, who was sued in 2015 for breaches of the securities law, as well as the implementation of a Ponzi scheme. The SEC's allegations centered on the company's push to sell Hashlets ("virtual miners") traded through the ZenCloud platform. The sale of those Hashlets, the SEC explained in court, "equates to an unlicensed securities offering."
Also, the two mining companies have to pay an additional $ 1 million in civil penalties. However, it highlights the fact that the court's decision did not include Garza: "The SEC's litigation continues against Garza," the entity said.
To better understand the context, let us remember that previously the SEC claimed in December 2015 that GAW Miners and ZenMiner, together with Homero Joshua Garza, intended to offer shares to investors in their Bitcoin mining operation. The sale had more than 10,000 investors who participated in this purchase. The SEC then noted that these companies did not have sufficient computing power for the mining work they promised, so most investors paid for a computing power that never existed, and refunds allegedly paid to some investors came from Of the income generated by sales to other investors.