The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it is suing cryptocurrency exchange HTX for illegally promoting digital asset services in the country.
The FCA opened legal proceedings against the exchange, formerly known as Huobi, in the High Court, London, according to an emailed statement on Thursday.
The financial regulator previously issued warnings going back to 2023 that the exchange, which was bought by Tron founder Justin Sun in 2022, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, may be promoting financial services without its permission. Sun was not named in the statement.
At the time, the FCA said consumers should avoid dealing with Huobi as it was unauthorized to promote financial services in the UK
“This action is part of our commitment to protect consumers and maintain the integrity of UK financial markets,” an FCA spokesman said in the statement. “We have seen crypto firms respond positively to our rules and regulation of financial promotions, but where we continue to see bad practice, we will not hesitate to intervene where firms appear to be in breach of our rules.”
HTX did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
