protos.com
In a filing with the courts of the Southern District of New York, Justin Sun’s legal team has both delayed his upcoming trial for fraud and market manipulation — the third delay thus far — and brought back to life the previously dissolved Singapore-based TRON Foundation.
The initial suit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in March last year alleged that DeAndre Cortez Way (aka SouljaBoy), Austin Mahone, and Justin Sun had knowingly participated in accepting undisclosed payments for advertising and possible market manipulation of TRON and BTT (BitTorrent) tokens.
Cortez Way lost the suit by default and Mahone reached a settlement in August of 2023. Sun delayed his response until a week after the default judgment against Mahone to acknowledge that he would be fighting the SEC.
Read more: Justin Sun stored USDD reserves at HTX for proof-of-reserves
In September, Sun delayed his first court appearance for three reasons: the need to reincorporate the TRON Foundation, a need to wait for a result from the SEC v Ripple Labs case, and more time to reach a settlement with the SEC.
The appearance was delayed again in December when Sun requested more time for himself, the BitTorrent Foundation, the TRON Foundation, and Rainberry — all Sun-owned and controlled entities — to unify their “responsive pleading deadlines” and “explore possible resolution of the SEC’s claims.”
There’s no set schedule for when Sun will appear before the court. Instead, the unification of pleas for the defendants will be announced on February 16. It’s possible, if not likely, that his legal representatives Fenwick & West will request another extension and subsequent delay of the proceedings.