The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has informed the Court that is open to discussing a settlement with the defendants in the case targeting fraudulent FX scheme ForexNPower. This becomes clear from a status report filed by the regulator on December 10, 2021, and seen by FX News Group.
Let’s recall that the CFTC filed an enforcement action against Safety Capital Management, Inc. (Safety) and GNS Capital, Inc. (GNS), both doing business as FOREXNPOWER, John Won, a controlling person of GNS, and Sungmi Kang, a controlling person of both Safety and GNS, back in September 2015. The defendants were charged with fraudulent solicitation of over $1.5 million from customers to trade off-exchange Forex and misappropriation of over $622,000 of customer funds. Tae Hung Kang (a/k/a Kevin Kang), an officer and agent of Safety and GNS, is charged with fraudulent solicitation of customers.
The CFTC Complaint alleges that from at least October 2010 through December 2013, Safety and GNS fraudulently solicited and accepted over $1.5 million from over 90 retail customers to participate in a forex commodity pool and/or to open forex trading accounts managed by Safety or GNS.
In its latest status report, the CFTC says it emailed Kang’s and Won’s criminal counsel and informed them that the CFTC is amenable to discussing settlement terms. Kang’s criminal counsel responded that Defendant Kang may be willing to discuss settlement terms but only after his December 14 sentencing date.
Defendant Won, through his criminal counsel, informed Plaintiff that he requests that the Court continue to stay this case until the criminal case against him is closed. Currently, Mr. Won is scheduled to be sentenced on June 7, 2022.
The CFTC opposes this request. The regulator says that this case can be resolved either through settlement or dispositive motion and there is no basis for extending the stay any longer.