The peak of water spill from the Kakhovka reservoir is expected by the morning of June 7, reported PJSC “Ukrhydroenergo” with reference to the general director of the company Igor Sirota on Tuesday.
“Further, there will be a stabilization of the water level. In 4-5 days the water will begin to recede,” said the head of Ukrhydroenergo.
On Tuesday morning, the Ukrhydrometeocenter warned that on the Dnieper River below the town of Novaya Kakhovka, as a result of the explosion of the Kakhovka hydropower plant, intense rise in water levels with flooding of riverbed areas and lowered parts in Kherson, in Kherson, Berislavsk, Skadovsky districts of Kherson region is expected. III level of danger – red.
As reported, at 02:50 on June 6, Russian troops carried out an internal explosion of structures at the occupied Kakhovska HPP, which led to the flooding of a number of settlements in the Kherson region. As of 11:00 a.m., 16 gates of the plant, the HPP building and the earth dam insert between the HPP building and the sluice and admin building were destroyed.
At the same time, the explosion of the HPP did not directly affect the situation in the Ukrainian energy system. There are no threats to the stability of power supply. The generated electricity is sufficient to cover the needs of consumers.
The destruction of the hydropower plant is considered a violation of the Geneva Convention.
Source: Interfax-Ukraine
The charges include operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers and clearing agencies, misrepresentations regarding the control and supervision of trading on the Binance.US platform, and the unregistered offer and sale of securities – U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Binance Holdings Ltd. (“Binance”), which operates the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform Binance.com, BAM Trading Services Inc. (“BAM Trading”), which together with Binance operates the cryptocurrency trading platform Binance.US, and their founder Changpeng Zhao with a number of securities law violations.
Among other things, the Commission alleges that while Zhao and Binance publicly stated that U.S. customers were prohibited from trading on Binance.com, Zhao and Binance were in fact undermining their own controls to secretly allow large U.S. customers to continue trading on the Binance.com platform. In addition, the Commission alleges, Zhao and Binance publicly claimed that Binance.US was established as a separate, independent trading platform for U.S. investors, Zhao and Binance secretly controlled the operations of the Binance.US platform behind the scenes.
The SEC also alleges that Zhao and Binance exercised control over the platform’s customer assets, allowing them to pool customer assets or redirect them at their discretion, including to Sigma Chain, a company owned and controlled by Zhao. The Commission’s complaint also alleges that BAM Trading and BAM Management US Holdings, Inc. (“BAM Management”) misled investors about non-existent controls over trading on the Binance.US platform, while Sigma Chain engaged in manipulative trading that artificially inflated trading volume on the platform. In addition, the complaint alleges that the defendants concealed the fact that they were commingling billions of dollars of investor assets and sending them to a third party, Merit Peak Limited, which is also owned by Zhao.
The complaint also alleges violations of important registration-related provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws:
Binance and BAM’s trading with existing unregistered national securities exchanges, broker-dealers and clearing agencies;
The unregistered offer and sale of Binance’s own crypto assets, including the so-called BNB exchange token, the so-called stablecoin, Binance USD (BUSD), certain cryptocurrency credit products, and the staking-as-a-service program;
Zhao as a person controlling the activities of unregistered national securities exchanges, broker-dealers and clearing agencies Binance and BAM Trading.
“With the thirteen charges, we allege that Zhao and Binance engaged in an extensive network of deception, conflicts of interest, insufficient disclosure, and willful evasion of the law,” said Gary Gensler, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “Zhao and Binance are alleged to have misled investors about risk controls and misrepresented trading volumes by actively concealing who operated the platform, the manipulative trading of its affiliated market maker, and even where and with whom investor funds and crypto assets were held. They attempted to circumvent U.S. securities laws by claiming bogus controls that they ignored behind the scenes in order to keep high value U.S. clients on their platforms. The public should be wary of investing any of their hard-earned assets in or on these illegal platforms.”
“Zhao and Binance allegedly misled investors about risk controls and misrepresented trading volumes by actively concealing who operated the platform, the manipulative trading of its affiliated market maker, and even where and with whom investor funds and crypto assets were held. They attempted to circumvent U.S. securities laws by claiming bogus controls that they ignored behind the scenes in order to keep high value U.S. clients on their platforms. The public should be wary of investing any of their hard-earned assets in or on these illegal platforms.”
“We allege that Zhao and Binance not only knew the rules of the game, but knowingly chose to violate them, putting their customers and investors at risk – all to maximize their own profits,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement. “By engaging in numerous unregistered offerings and failing to register and simultaneously combining the functions of exchanges, brokers, dealers, and clearing agencies, the Binance platforms under Zhao’s control created undue risks and conflicts of interest for investors. These risks and conflicts are only exacerbated by the lack of transparency of Binance’s platforms, reliance on related party transactions, and lies about controls to prevent manipulative trading. Despite their longstanding efforts not to be ‘held accountable,’ today’s complaint begins the process of holding them accountable.”
UNREGISTERED EXCHANGE, BROKER AND CLEARING AGENCY
The Commission’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that since at least July 2017, Binance.com and Binance.US, under Zhao’s control, have operated as exchanges, brokers, dealers, and clearing agencies and have earned at least $11.6 billion, in part, from transaction fees from U.S. customers. The Commission’s complaint alleges that: (1) with respect to Binance.com, Binance should have registered as an exchange, broker-dealer and clearing agency; (2) with respect to Binance.US, Binance and BAM Trading should have registered as an exchange and as clearing agencies; and (3) BAM Trading should have registered as a broker-dealer. The Commission also alleges that Zhao is liable, as a person in control of Binance and BAM Trading, for the relevant registration violations.
UNREGISTERED OFFER AND SALE OF CRYPTO ASSETS
The Commission accused Binance of unregistered offers and sales of BNB, BUSD, and cryptocurrency products known as “Simple Earn” and “BNB Vault”. In addition, the Commission accused BAM Trading of unregistered offer and sale of the Binance.US “staking as a service” program. The complaint also states that Binance secretly controls the assets invested by US customers in the BAM program.
FAILURE TO RESTRICT U.S. INVESTORS’ ACCESS TO BINANCE.COM
The SEC’s complaint alleges that Zhao and Binance created BAM Management and BAM Trading in September 2019 as part of a complex scheme to circumvent U.S. federal securities laws by claiming that BAM Trading independently operated the Binance.US platform and that U.S. customers could not use the Binance.com platform. The complaint alleges that, in fact, Zhao and Binance maintained significant ownership and control of the U.S. company and that behind the scenes, Zhao instructed Binance to allow and conceal the continued access to Binance.com by many U.S. customers with significant funds. In one instance, Binance’s head of compliance wrote to a colleague that “we are operating as a fictitious unlicensed securities exchange in the US, bro.”
MISLEADING INVESTORS
According to the Commission’s complaint, BAM Trading and BAM Management misled Binance.US customers and investors about the existence and adequacy of market oversight and controls to detect and prevent manipulation of cryptocurrency trading volumes on the Binance.US platform. The complaint also alleges that the strategic and targeted trading for the purpose of money laundering, which was largely carried out by Sigma Chain, the main undisclosed “market maker” trading firm of the Binance.US platform, also owned by Zhao, demonstrates the falsity of BAM Trading’s claims of market oversight and control.
The SEC’s investigation into the Binance.US violations was led by Kathleen Hitchins, Ann Rosenfield, and Colby Steele, with assistance from Ainsley Kerr, John Marino, and Donald Battle, and supervised by Paul Kim.
The Binance.com investigation was led by Michael Baker, Donna K. Norman and Martin Zerwitz, with assistance from Sachin Verma and Alexander Lefferts and supervised by Deborah A. Tarasiewicz. Both cases were supervised by Jorge G. Tenreyro and David Hirsch of the SEC’s Division of Cryptoassets and Cyberspace. The litigation is being led by Matthew Scarlato, Jennifer Farer and J. Emmett Murphy, with assistance from Hope Hall Augustini and supervised by David Nasse, Olivia Chow and Mr. Tenreyro.
Source: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-101
Author: Ivaneta Mykyta
The ban on the export of wheat, barley, rapeseed and sunflower seeds from Ukraine to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, imposed on May 2 for the period until June 5, will be extended until September 15, the Polish Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Robert Telusz said.
“It (the relevant regulation) has not yet been approved or published, but we have information that the European Commission has extended the ban on imports of wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower from Ukraine until mid-September 2023,” the minister was quoted by the press service of the Polish agency on Monday evening.
According to Telusz, if the information about the ban on imports is confirmed, as of tomorrow, Poland will not be able to receive grain on contracts concluded before May 2, 2023.
Polish minister also said that negotiations with the so-called Eastern European border countries and the European Commission will continue. They will discuss the prospect of further extending the ban on the import of Ukrainian grain to these countries after September 15, 2023.
The Polish Agriculture Ministry said that the ban can be made more flexible taking into account the specifics of individual countries.
Speaking about grain exports, Telusz said 1.054 million tons of grain were exported from Poland in March, 1.152 million tons in April and the same amount was exported in May.
“That brings the total to more than 3 million tons of grains exported from Poland. At the same time, imports are falling. In February it was 270 thousand tons, in March 260 thousand tons, and in April only 49 thousand tons,” summarized the minister.
As reported, on Monday morning Telush reported receiving from the EU a new draft regulation to extend the ban on imports of four types of grains and oilseeds from Ukraine to five countries until September 15, 2023 and expressed hope that it will be introduced as early as June 6.
The European Commission’s speaker for agriculture and trade, Miriam Garcia Ferrer, clarified at a briefing at noon that no decision has been made at this stage, discussions are ongoing.
The EU ban on imports of wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower from Ukraine came into force on May 2 and replaced unilateral import bans imposed by countries bordering Ukraine, particularly Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia, in violation of the Association Agreement and EU internal regulations as of April 28.
As noted by the EU, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia undertook to cancel unilateral measures on these and all other goods originating from Ukraine and to allow free transit.
The state budget deficit of Ukraine in April 2023 increased to 88.3 billion UAH from 32.6 billion UAH in April and 59.2 billion UAH in March, the Ministry of Finance said on its website on Friday.
It specified that the general fund deficit increased to 91.6 billion UAH from 65.6 billion UAH and 72.6 billion UAH respectively.
The Ministry of Finance with reference to the operational data of the State Treasury specified that the cash expenditures of the state budget in May also increased to 364.7 billion UAH from 295.8 billion UAH in April and 300.8 billion UAH in March.
The same picture is in the general fund: the growth to 277.7 billion UAH from 229.7 billion UAH in April and 225.2 billion UAH in March.
As pointed out by the Ministry of Finance, in May 2023, the receipts to the general fund of the state budget increased again to 184 billion UAH from 162.8 billion UAH in April and 152.2 billion UAH in March.
At the same time, international grant assistance provided by the USA amounted to the same UAH 45.7 billion as in the previous two months.
During January-May this year, cash expenditures of the state budget reached UAH 1 trillion 407.9 billion, including general fund – UAH 1 trillion 142.9 billion, or 95% of budget expenditures against 93.8% in April, while state budget revenues amounted to UAH 1,060.9 billion, of which UAH 225 billion were grant international aid.
During those five months, the state budget was executed with a deficit of UAH 341.2 billion, including the general fund deficit of UAH 401.9 billion against the planned schedule of the general fund deficit of UAH 713.9 billion.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada on March 21, 2023 increased the state budget expenditures by 487 billion UAH, revenues – by 61 billion UAH, which led to an increase in the deficit by 419 billion UAH.
Now the state budget revenues are set at 1 trillion 390.4 billion UAH, including the general fund – 1 trillion 233.8 billion UAH, while the expenditures are 3 trillion 75.9 billion UAH and 2 trillion 783.4 billion UAH respectively.
The state budget deficit is set at UAH 1 trillion 719.7 billion, including the general fund at UAH 1 trillion 543.9 billion. It is assumed that it will be financed almost entirely by external borrowing of $42 billion.
The Ministry of Finance specified that the value added tax (VAT) from goods produced in Ukraine in May brought 17.3 billion UAH compared to 16.6 billion UAH in April, but VAT refund again decreased from 11.4 billion UAH to 9.9 billion UAH.
The import VAT added another 28.5 billion UAH (25.1 billion UAH in April), personal income tax and military levy 14.1 billion UAH (13.4 billion UAH), royalties for subsoil use 4.5 billion UAH (4.9 billion UAH), and corporate income tax 28.5 billion UAH (2.3 billion UAH) to the budget.
Excise tax brought another 9.5 billion UAH (9.9 billion UAH) to the state budget; import and export duties accounted for 2.5 billion UAH (2.2 billion UAH), and the tax administration exceeded the estimate by 9.1%, or 8.4 billion UAH.
Besides, if in April the general fund of the state budget received another 35.9 billion UAH from the National Bank in the form of transferring part of profits (and the same amount was transferred to the Fund of liquidation of consequences of armed aggression of the Russian Federation in the special fund of the state budget), in May the general fund supported PrivatBank with dividends of 24.2 billion UAH.
Receipts of ERUs to the Pension Fund and social insurance funds in May 2023 rose to 38.5 billion UAH from 37.9 billion UAH in March, added the Ministry of Finance.
According to him, the actual state borrowing in the general fund of the state budget in May 2023 decreased to 142 billion UAH from 193.4 billion UAH in April and 176.7 billion UAH in March, and a total of 738.9 billion UAH for five months, or 87.9% of the plan.
Of which UAH 240.3 billion (UAH 68.6 billion in May) were received from placement of government bonds for five months, including UAH 80.3 billion (UAH 40.7 billion), or $1027.7 million, and EUR86.9 million ($616.4 million and EUR418 million) in foreign currency.
Credit proceeds from external sources for five months amounted to UAH 425.2 billion, including UAH 73.4 billion in May.
At that, payments on state debt repayment in May 2023 increased to 55.1 billion UAH from 46 billion UAH in April, and on servicing – to 45.7 billion UAH from 13.9 billion UAH.
The Ministry of Finance stressed that the rollover of OVDPs in five months was full: the funds raised from OVDPs allowed to fully cover the needs for payments on them.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s swearing-in ceremony was held Saturday at the Turkish parliament.
“The swearing-in ceremony and inauguration of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took place Saturday, June 3, at the Turkish parliament building in Ankara,” Anadolu Agency reported.
The ceremony was attended by representatives from 78 countries, including the heads of state and government of 20 countries.
Erdoğan, 69, was elected to a third presidential term – until 2028.
Later, Erdoğan will lay a wreath at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. A luncheon in honor of the guests who arrived for the event is also planned.
On Saturday, Erdogan will also name a new Turkish cabinet.
Erdogan won the second round of the Turkish presidential election, which was held on May 28. According to data after processing 99.75% of ballots, Erdogan received 52.1% of the votes, while his opponent, opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, won 47.9%.
Earlier, a video on the Club of Experts channel analyzed the situation in Turkey after the elections. The full video can be seen at the link:
The volume of financing actually allocated to Ukraine by international partners in January-May 2023 to cover the deficit was $17.97 billion, compared to $32.14 billion in the previous year, the Ministry of Finance has reported.
According to the data published on its website, the grants accounted for $6.16 billion or 31.1%, including $6 billion provided by the United States, $52 million by Germany, $50 million by Spain and $21 million each by Finland and Ireland.
The biggest creditor of Ukraine this year is the EU – $8.12 billion, which has already exceeded the figure of the whole of last year, which amounted to $7.96 billion.
The IMF is the third largest lender this year with $2.706 billion compared with $2.693 billion last year.
They are followed by Canada with $1.76 billion, as well as the World Bank and the UK with $0.55 billion and $0.50 billion, respectively.
The Ministry of Finance specifies that the internal financing of the state budget through placement of government bonds amounted to $6.74 billion during this period.
As earlier reported, in 2023, Ukraine expects to receive about $42-42.5 bln in external financing of the state budget.
