The SEC joined Do Kwon’s request to begin a trial after his extradition to the US.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has joined a request by attorneys representing Do Quon to begin the trial after the extradition of the Terraform Labs co-founder.

In a lawsuit filed Jan. 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the SEC said Kwon was “fully ready, willing and able to proceed,” which was scheduled to begin on Jan. 29, but joined a motion to push the start date past March 18. Kwon's legal team is handling legal challenges to his extradition to the United States. He was arrested in March 2023 while in Montenegro as the co-founder of Terraform Labs.

“The SEC agrees to the request for a temporary leave to allow Kwon to attend the hearing,” the filing said. “If the trial date is extended, the SEC respectfully requests that the trial begin on April 15, 2024.”

Cowon's attorneys sent a letter to Judge Jed Rakoff on Jan. 11 asking that the January trial be delayed until the Terraform co-founder could attend the defense in person. The legal team noted that the extradition process, which began after Kwon's arrest in Montenegro, has been slower than expected.

Although the SEC agreed to the request to postpone the trial date, it objected to Kwon's case being cut off from the Terraform case with the commission. Both were named as defendants when the SEC filed suit in February 2023.

The SEC said it “requires witnesses, SEC whistleblowers and retail investors with limited financial resources, to testify twice about the same facts in different trials without the need to conduct two trials.”

Related: Terra co-founder Do Kwon will stay in Montenegro until February: report

In May 2022, the Terra ecosystem collapsed, which many consider a major event in the crypto market crash of that year. TerraUSD originated from the US dollar and later several crypto firms filed for bankruptcy, including Voyager Digital, BlockFi, Celsius Network, and FTX.

Although Kwon will not be available to attend in person, pretrial motions for the SEC case are moving forward. In December, Judge Rakoff ruled in favor of Kwon and Terraform in connection with Terraform's unregistered securities and the offering and sale of security-based swaps to the SEC.

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