JAMES KOUTOULAS | PROFILE & COURT RECORD

SEC Formally Concurred with Mr. Koutoulas That No Allegations Were Warranted Regarding LGBCoin


Before this language was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (S.D. Fla.), the SEC conferred with James L. Koutoulas and consented to its inclusion in his unopposed motion filed June 24, 2025. The motion states that the SEC formally concurred with Mr. Koutoulas’s position that it could not allege LGBCoin was a security and had closed its investigation without findings of wrongdoing. This account appears in Koutoulas v. SEC, No. 1:23-cv-22345-JEM (Document 31, page 2); the SEC’s public releases and the motion are linked below.

Key court filings

These court filings contain the parties’ account of the investigation’s conclusion and the subsequent dismissal. The March appellate filing includes the SEC staff’s March 10, 2025 notice as an exhibit. The June filing is Mr. Koutoulas’s motion; its description of the SEC’s concurrence is attributed to that filing.

SEC staff’s investigation-closure letter

In its March 10, 2025 letter to Mr. Koutoulas, the SEC staff stated:

“We have concluded the investigation as to you, James L. Koutoulas. Based on the information we have as of this date, we do not intend to recommend an enforcement action by the Commission against you.”

The same letter expressly includes this qualification:

We are providing this notice under the guidelines set out in the final paragraph of Securities Act Release No. 5310, which states in part that the notice “must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result from the staff’s investigation.”

Source: SEC staff letter, March 10, 2025 (Eleventh Circuit Document 38-2; page 7 of the linked PDF). The cited authority is Securities Act Release No. 5310, final paragraph, Procedures Relating to the Commencement of Enforcement Proceedings and Termination of Staff Investigations, an SEC release—not a statute. The letter reports the staff’s decision not to recommend enforcement action based on the information then available; it does not constitute an exoneration.

What the court record and SEC releases say

In a June 12, 2024 litigation release, the SEC reported that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted an application to enforce an investigative subpoena and denied Koutoulas’s petition to quash it. The SEC release also stated that the Commission had not concluded that any individual or entity had violated federal securities laws at that time. Read the SEC’s June 2024 release.

On June 4, 2025, the SEC reported that the Eleventh Circuit granted Koutoulas’s unopposed motion to dismiss his appeal as moot because the Commission had concluded the underlying investigation and no longer sought enforcement of the subpoena. With both parties’ consent, the appellate court vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded the case for dismissal. Read the SEC’s June 2025 release and the linked order of dismissal.

The initial subpoena ruling concerned production of information during an investigation; the 2025 dismissal followed the Commission’s conclusion of that investigation and the parties’ consent. The SEC releases do not report a finding that Koutoulas or another person violated securities laws in this matter. For the motion’s full account of the SEC’s concurrence and closure without findings, see Document 31 in the case docket.

About James L. Koutoulas

Mr. Koutoulas has led the pro bono recovery of more than $7 billion for 48,000 victims of brokerage fraud. His pro bono work has also included working with the SEC in a matter that resulted in enforcement action against a hedge-fund Ponzi scheme, and working with the FBI in a matter that resulted in an indictment and a conviction. The identities of those matters are not disclosed here for confidentiality reasons.

James L. Koutoulas is Founder and CEO of Typhon Capital Management and Chief Executive Officer of JurisTrade. For selected media coverage, interviews, and professional profiles, visit his media and profile page. Learn more about Typhon Capital Management’s leadership and JurisTrade.

Selected media coverage

Selected profiles and coverage, presented as contemporaneous reporting and attributed to their publishers: