A judge rejected the request by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to reinstate the sanctions against Tornado Cash.

Source: Cointelegraph Original: "U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Requests to Reinstate Tornado Cash Sanctions Rejected by Judge"

A U.S. federal court ruled that OFAC cannot reinstate or reimpose sanctions on the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled on April 28 that OFAC's sanctions against Tornado Cash were unlawful and "permanently prohibited" the agency from enforcing the related sanctions.

This case was brought by Joseph Van Loon and other Tornado Cash users, claiming that OFAC's action to include the platform's smart contract address on the "Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons" (SDN) list "is not in accordance with legal provisions."

In August 2022, OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash, accusing the protocol of assisting the North Korean hacking group "Lazarus Group" in laundering stolen cryptocurrencies. On March 21 of this year, OFAC removed Tornado Cash from the sanctions list and argued that the matter has "no practical significance" after a favorable court ruling in January.

The latest amended ruling prohibits OFAC from re-sanctioning Tornado Cash or placing it back on the blacklist. It is worth noting that the court initially dismissed part of the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and supported the position of the Treasury Department, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the original ruling, instructing the lower court to support the plaintiff's claims, ultimately leading to the lifting of sanctions. In March of this year, the Treasury Department also argued that a final court ruling was unnecessary in this case.

Cryptocurrency organizations petition the White House regarding the Tornado Cash case.

On April 28, the DeFi Education Fund submitted a petition to David Sacks, the White House's cryptocurrency czar, requesting the prosecution to drop charges against Roman Storm, the co-founder of Tornado Cash.

Storm was accused in August 2023 of assisting in the laundering of over $1 billion in cryptocurrency through the agreement, and its court hearing is still scheduled for July this year.

The organization pointed out in the petition that the Justice Department's attempt to hold software developers criminally liable for how others use their code is "not only absurd in principle, but could also stifle all cryptocurrency development activities in the U.S., setting a dangerous precedent."

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