Ooki DAO — a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) — was taken to court by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in September for reportedly breaking federal commodities laws by trying to offer leveraged and margin crypto trading products to American investors. CTFC responded on Monday to four amicus briefs submitted at the behalf of Ooki DAO.
All of the four amicus briefs urged Northern California district court Judge William Orrick to reevaluate his previous ruling approving the CTFC’s usage of the DAO’s help bot and a forum post as an unconventional means to serve notice of the lawsuit on the DAO members.
The CFTC argued that it served the legal papers in an only way the DAO made itself available. The CFTC stated that the notice was effectively served as the DAO was clearly aware of the lawsuit — acknowledged in both its official forum and Twitter account.
Even at the CFTC, there has been debate surrounding the CFTC’s lawsuit against the Ooki DAO members, which is a similar case to those that have previously been resolved against the DAO’s purported predecessor firm, bZeroX, and its two founders.
After the announcement of the lawsuit, Commissioner Summer Mersinger provided a different viewpoint, calling the proceedings “arbitrary and unfair.” She asserted that because all governance token holders were regarded to be voting members of the DAO by the lawsuit, it “will have a chilling effect that discourages voting, thereby hindering good governance and the development of a culture of compliance in this setting.”
The amicus filings argued that the CFTC’s move may hinder innovative software innovations in addition to possibly having the aforementioned chilling effect on DAO participation, which the CFTC’s lawyers took issue with in their objection.
