Former Binance.US CEO Catherine Coley, who is transparently known as \u201cBAM CEO A\u201d in the suit against Binance filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 5, has kept a low profile since her departure. However, she provided testimony to the SEC in 2022 when it was investigating the company for insider trading.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That testimony has resurfaced as an exhibit in the SEC\u2019s new case against the cryptocurrency exchange. Coley\u2019s 2022 testimony was apparently quite long, as the selections that constitute Exhibit 86 in the case have page numbers that range from 135 to 336. Those passages mainly concern the separation of Binance and Binance.US, which was the subject of major allegations in the SEC suit. <\/p>\n
Related: SEC lawsuit claims Binance.US, Changpeng Zhao put customer funds \u2018at significant risk\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Coley was the Binance.US CEO from its founding in 2019 until her resignation in 2021. As recounted in the SEC suit, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as \u201cCZ,” was involved in Coley\u2019s hiring,but she quickly became frustrated with Binance.US\u2019 lack of independence. The suit quotes her from the 2022 testimony:<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted full independence of everything, but that wouldn\u2019t necessarily be possible or be possible at that time, given our reliance on some of those components [in four service-level agreements with Binance.com].\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The service-level agreements between Binance and Binance.US were a master services agreement, a wallet custody agreement, a software license agreement and a trademark agreement.<\/p>\n The wallet agreement particularly irked Coley, who testified in 2022, \u201cThe wallet and custody was one that I wanted to have at least U.S. participation in so that we would have control over the custody of the tokens.\u201d Trading data was covered by the agreements. \u201cI wanted custody of the data and ability to interact with the raw data in real time,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n The suit quotes Coley from internal communications in addition to the 2022 testimony. These include her references to Binance.US\u2019 efforts to receive more independence as \u201cProject 1776\u201d and a blunt interaction about wash trading. <\/p>\n