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Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

> The SEC attempted to establish jurisdiction over Do Kwon and Terraform Labs late last year but failed spectacularly.

The effort that produced this order in their favor in February? https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/02/18/terra-ceo-do-kw...

How did they fail?

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They are not located in the US.

That certainly could be a factor that might contribute to the SEC failing, I’m asking for the evidence that the SEC did fail.

US courts have regularly exercised jurisdiction over parties located outside of the US.

> That certainly could be a factor that might contribute to the SEC failing

You are correct.

You have yet to substantiate that they failed, in any way.

They failed to establish jurisdiction over their intended targets.

No they did not.

You're both right and wrong. The SEC was told by a US court that they can in fact deliver a subpoena, so from the SEC perspective they've been given "jurisdiction". However the other side of the coin is that they've been granted permission to serve a subpoena to someone who isn't American, and to a company that doesn't have a presence in the US.

If Do Kwon decides to visit the US and hasn't complied, he may find himself getting arrested. If his company decides to have assets in the US, they may be seized. However until either of those things happen, which they won't*, then the US has zero teeth in this.

* assuming he doesn't visit the US again

*Or he isn't important enough to go get.

So the way this goes is, the Americans are patient. A week after you're hyper vigilant of course, a month after, a year after... and then 20 years later your best friend's daughter is getting married and she's insistent it has to be on Hawaii, and... next thing you know you're in handcuffs being led away by agents who weren't even born when you committed a crime.

> The SEC was told by a US court that they can in fact deliver a subpoena

Wrong. They served the subpoena first; they need no permission to do that. Then SEC sued to enforce the subpoena, and the SEC prevailed in their suit.

Then Do Kwon and Terraform applied to have enforcement of the subpoena stayed by the trial court pending appeal, and failed; they then attempted to get the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to stay the subpoena pending appeal, and failed, and currently are in the process of litigating the case before the Second Circuit.

To portray this as a case where the SEC has failed (spefctacularly or otherwise) to establish jurisdiction is false.

I think Russia might have some comment to make here on the potential reach of US/interested-parties law.

The incentives are thankfully lower here, though.

If they sold to the US investors they have to abide by US rules. US has a bunch of extradition treaties making it very hard to run from US law enforcement.

> If they sold to the US investors they have to abide by US rules.

If you look closely at that statement, however, you can see that it's recursive and missing the base case: the rule which says "If they sold to the US investors they have to abide by US rules" is itself a US rule.

Thus the mention of extradition treaties, which mean (to a loose approximation) that other countries agree to let some US rules get enforced on people in their borders.

In Terraform's case, it looks like they're in Singapore. Which the US does indeed have an extradition treaty with.

And yet, Edward Snowden still sits outside of US prison.

Obviously the extradition treaties have limits.

Yes, the fairly obvious limit of going somewhere the US doesn't have an extradition treaty with. In Snowden's case: Russia. Which I personally wouldn't be thrilled to do, but the options are limited.

Here's the countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradit...

It's not hard, in theory, but it does rather limit your movements going forward.

There are a good number of grey countries on that map I suspect they would just rendition you from.

Lots of misrepresentation going on here. An extradition treaty merely facilitates things. You can have protections despite a treaty (e.g. France for its own citizens, ever!) and you could still be extradited if there isn’t one (there just isn’t an agreed upon mechanism for how to do it).

Before someone assumes this is a dirty European protectionist trick, the US do not extradite their citizens either.

No, they (rarely) do

Here’s a recent example - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56248558

You’re right, every treaty is a different beast and there are no absolutes. But the general principle is Further, 18 U.S.C. 3181 and 3184 permit the United States to extradite, without regard to the existence of a treaty, persons (other than citizens, nationals or permanent residents of the United States), who have committed crimes of violence against nationals of the United States in foreign countries.

https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-15000-international-extradit...

If the applicable treaty or convention does not obligate the United States to extradite its citizens to a foreign country, the Secretary of State may, nevertheless, order the surrender to that country of a United States citizen whose extradition has been requested by that country if the other requirements of that treaty or convention are met.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3196

Those seem to be the mechanisms to extradite in the absence of a treaty. No point in having laws about treaties because ratified treaties trump the law (is my understanding).

Yeah I think that's a pretty common thing to do. Outside of US and some EU countries, I know Carlos Ghosn is famously hiding in Lebanon where he is a citizen.

Does any country extradite their own citizens?

Most do/will. Unless you have an ironclad constitutional protection against it, there’s an extradition risk for citizens in their own country.

Go to Russia and have a use for the authorities there, or have a lever/debt of gratitude.

I genuinely don't know where Snowden sits on that - I think he serves as a useful demonstration of the power of Russia and the failings of the US, but obviously know nothing.

On the other hand, a failed crypto bro who has taken oligarch money and can't repay it with interest. I think that is going to be the very definition of a "Russian Holiday".

Snowden’s charges had a maximum of 10 years. If he had surrendered and pled, he would be free in America soon. Instead he gets to spend the rest of his life in Russia. That was his choice.

He could have been free - or he could have suffered a 'mishap' in prison. Not that things have ultimately worked out well for him, but I'd understood Russia was merely a stop-over from which he realised there wasn't going to ever be a safe onward option, so he's stuck.

Each year in prison shortens your life expectancy by two years. So he'd be out soon, but very very unhealthy. Better to be in Russia. It's not the worst.

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