Judge Hellerstein rejects a joint Gemini and CFTC bid to vacate a $5 million consent order

Both sides of the case asked for the same relief, so the refusal came from the bench ^[1]. The order they wanted gone was about 21 months old when Hellerstein ruled ^[15], and the conduct behind it dated from 2017, nine years earlier ^[16].

According to Crypto Briefing, the judge put weight on the timeline: Gemini agreed to settle three weeks before the case was due to go to trial ^[4]. A settlement signed with a trial date that close is a bargained decision. The CFTC's later doubts rest on two points, a whistleblower its review described as not credible and a shift in the agency's enforcement priorities ^[10]. Both are the agency's present judgment of its own case, and the court, as the outlet reports it, found that kind of argument short of the standard for reopening a final judgment ^[5].

One ruling from one judge in the Southern District of New York ^[14] is a single data point on how courts treat joint requests to unwind crypto settlements, and Crypto Briefing summarizes it without quoting the opinion. We think the narrow reading holds: a regulator's change of mind does not by itself reopen a judgment, and a defendant that settled three weeks before trial starts the Rule 60 argument from a weak position ^[3]. The counter-case is that these particular grounds were thin, and a motion built on firmer ones could succeed. We would drop the view if a second court granted a joint vacatur on the same internal-review reasoning, or if the judge's full reasoning turns on something other than the settlement timing.