On June 10, 2019, Coindesk reported that spokesperson told them that the New York-based Metropolitan Commercial Bank kept the accounts of the stable currency issuer Tether and its affiliates for less than six months before they decided to shut it down.
The New York Attorney General’s Office (NYAG) which has been involved in a legal tussle with Tether and its subsidiary, Encrypted cryptocurrency Exchange Bitfinex, presented a new document on Monday showing the two encrypted Tether accounts in the Metropolitan Bank and Signature Bank based in the state.
These documents serve as evidence for NYAG’s argument that it has the legal authority to investigate companies because they have New York clients.
However, the relationship between Metropolis and Tether, the parent company of Bitfinex which is iFinex and Digfinex (the majority shareholder of Tether and iFinex) seems to be short.
A spokesperson for the bank told CoinDesk that the three accounts had very little activity and said in an email:
“Metropolitan Commercial Bank has a limited number of commercial operating accounts with Tether Holdings LTD, iFinex Inc, and Digfinex Inc. All account activities are insignificant and require accounts to be closed less than 5 months after opening the account.”
According to yesterday’s report, the New York Attorney General’s Office submitted about 30 documents, which proved that cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and Tether, have been plying their trade in New York while the defendants denied it.
The documents refer to the long legal battle waged through a judicial file in April by New York attorney general Letitia James, who accused the two organizations of defrauding investors in the state through a massive cover-up of losses worth $850 million.
In early July, Bitfinex announced that it had used a bank transfer to pay a $ 100 million unpaid loan to Tether’s bank account. Although the amount was not yet due to be paid to the operator under the facility, the exchange decided to complete the advance payment based on the financial conditions at the end of the second quarter of 2019. As Bitfinex says:
“Also on July 1st, Bitfinex fully prepaid all interest accrued under the loan facility to Tether up to the end of day on June 30, 2019, also in fiat.”