On Wednesday, Uniswap Labs disclosed that it had received a Wells notice from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The company behind the Ethereum decentralized exchange (DEX) had been warned that it would face a lawsuit related to securities charges.
The response
Hayden Adams, the founder of Uniswap, said that they were not surprised, but were disappointed and annoyed and also prepared to fight.
He asserted that their products were legal and they were working on the right side of history. He added that the SEC had made it clear that it was not interested in creating informed and clear rules.
Instead, he said that the securities regulator had opted to attack good actors like Coinbase and Uniswap, meanwhile bad actors, such as FTX, had slipped by.
For years, the SEC has been investigating the leading Ethereum DEX. It was first reported in September 2021 by the Wall Street Journal.
The regulator had launched an investigation into the workings of the exchange and how it was marketed to the public.
The DEX allows users to directly trade with each other in a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner without requiring an intermediary.
The crackdown
The news of impending legal action against Uniswap comes amidst a time when the SEC has been cracking down on the crypto industry.
The regulator has targeted several crypto giants in the past year, including Binance, Ripple and Coinbase.
Recently, the Ethereum Foundation disclosed that a state authority had sent a voluntary inquiry, but it did not disclose the name of the said authority.
It had been reported recently that many crypto companies had gotten subpoenas about their dealings with the Foundation that supports the Ethereum network.
The details
The Chief Legal Officer at Uniswap, Marvin Ammori, stated that the enforcement action from the regulator would just be another ‘abuse of power’.
He added that while the Wells notice had disappointed, but had not come as a surprise. He tweeted that the company’s products complied with the US laws.
He stated that they were more than ready to accept clear and sensible regulations for the crypto industry and wanted to see clear laws for it in the United States.
He went on to say that they did not want to see continued abuse of power or arbitrary enforcement. He said that they were ready to fight against this abuse and were confident that they would win.
Uniswap Labs is not the only company that has accused the SEC of abuse of power. Other crypto companies and enthusiasts share the same sentiments.
A judge had also recently said things along the same lines about the regulator’s stance towards the crypto industry.