CACEIS, the asset servicing business owned by Credit Agricole and Santander, has registered with France’s markets regulator AMF to provide custody services for digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies.
The company registered as a digital asset service provider (DASP) on June 20, according AMF’s website, adding a major traditional financial services group to the growing number of crypto companies registered by the French watchdog.
France has been supportive of the nascent industry and was the first major European country to grant registration to the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.
Subsidiaries of other big names in French finance, such as Societe Generale and AXA, are also listed among the DASPs registered with AMF.
CACEIS had EUR 4.1 trillion (roughly Rs. 3,36,37,200 crore) in assets under custody at end of last year, according to its website. Credit Agricole SA is its majority owner with a 69.5 percent stake, while Santander holds a 30.5 percent of the group.
On the other hand, months before cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase became the biggest target of the US crackdown on digital assets, the company launched an unusual legal offensive, recruiting top lawyers to try to shape court rulings in other cases.
Before the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Coinbase on June 6, the company had weighed in on two other crypto-related lawsuits brought by the regulator and urged judges to adopt views on open legal questions that are now at the heart of its own case.
In each case, Coinbase filed briefs as an “amicus,” or friend of the court.
While common at the US Supreme Court, amicus briefs are filed in just 0.1 percent of cases in federal trial courts, according to law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, although crypto industry groups have been filing an increasing number in SEC cases in support of defendants.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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