South Korean Court Halts Six-Month Business Suspension Penalty for Bithumb

ChainCatcher report: The Seoul Administrative Court in South Korea has granted Bithumb’s application to suspend the enforcement of a six-month partial business suspension imposed by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), pending the final judgment. Previously, the FIU accused Bithumb of 6.65 million violations of the Specific Financial Information Act, including failures to comply with obligations related to the prohibition of transactions by unregistered virtual asset service providers, customer verification, and transaction restrictions. In March of this year, the FIU imposed a six-month partial business suspension and a fine of KRW 36.8 billion. The partial suspension prohibits new customers from conducting external deposits or withdrawals of virtual assets and represents the harshest sanction ever imposed on a Korean won-based cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea. The suspension was originally set to take effect on March 27, but Bithumb filed an administrative lawsuit and requested a stay of enforcement on March 23, prior to the effective date. The court approved the request, and the enforcement of the sanction has been suspended since then.