OmniPay Court Documents

Financial Cryptography has posted several court documents related to OmniPay's recent legal hassles. The Secret Service has seized $726,218.91 from two bank accounts, and from reading the documents it looks like the Estonian bank is a recent development — OmniPay had ordinarily been using domestic banks, which is where the funds were seized.

The legal brouhaha is, as far as I can tell, the government complaining that OmniPay isn't licensed as a money transmitting business. And OmniPay counters that it doesn't meet the statutory definition of a money transmitting business. It's also said that the Treasury's official position is that it does not classify e-gold as a currency.

The legal meat is in the Complaint file and in Attachment 5 of the "Doc3" file. The defense reads vigorously, but I am not a lawyer. OmniPay managed to process my order promptly even in the midst of this litigation, which is a good sign. But I wonder how healthy they can be if they've had three quarters of a million dollars seized.

How can the government get away with being so mean? Paragraph 12 of the defense is heartbreaking:

Although Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc. has been openly and notoriously operating in the United States for nine (9) years, the Department of Treasury has never required Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc. to file reports of any kind on any of its transactions. …

The government let them operate for nine years without taking a non-violent action like, oh, sending them a friendly letter stating "We're concerned about your legality and we'd like you to consider getting licensed. You can talk to our lawyers about it." No! Instead of being helpful and potentially avoiding litigation, they seized three quarters of a million dollars.

Why so mean?? Shocking! Outrageous!