“The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) announced today it will participate in a multi-jurisdictional settlement, along with other provincial and U.S. state securities regulators, with GS Partners and its affiliated companies,” the OSC said in a Feb. 12 release.
The British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) and the Alberta Securities Commission announced in January that they were joining the settlement.
GS Partners, its affiliated companies and its representatives have previously claimed to have over 800,000 investors from more than 170 countries and to have completed nearly US$1 billion in transactions.
The companies in question sold various digital assets, including the “G999 token,” which was purportedly deployed on a proprietary blockchain tied to physical gold and digital vouchers representing ownership interests in a skyscraper.
GS Partners and affiliated companies also sold investments in a so-called “staking pool” in a metaverse and ‘certificates’ through which purchasers were allegedly incentivized through gamification to continue adding more and more value to their certificates to unlock greater returns.
A staking pool is a mechanism that allows individuals to combine and lock their digital assets in a proof-of-stake blockchain to improve their likelihood of receiving rewards for validating blocks in a blockchain.
In November 2023, state regulators in the United States and the BCSC began filing enforcement actions against GS Partners and its affiliates to stop the allegedly illegal offers and sales.
In September 2024, a working group of state securities regulators from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin reached a settlement agreement with the concerned companies.
“GS Partners and its affiliates must return all money and/or cryptocurrencies deposited with them, regardless of the product or service the investor purchased, and must also fund the costs of the claims process,” the OSC release noted.
Investors must file a claim within 90 days of Feb. 21, 2025 to receive a refund. Investors will be paid back in either money or cryptocurrency depending on how the investments were made.
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