Banc de Binary, the industry's first major US settlement, for $11 million
The SEC sued Cyprus-based Banc de Binary Ltd. and its founder Oren Shabat Laurent in 2013, alleging the company illegally sold unregistered binary options to US customers while falsely claiming a Wall Street presence. A parallel CFTC action followed. In February 2016 the company, Laurent and three affiliated entities settled for a combined 11 million dollars, split between an SEC Fair Fund for harmed investors and a CFTC civil penalty, with Laurent personally paying $150,000.
- Year
- 2016
- Where
- CY, IL, United States
- Outcome
- Settled
- Reported loss
- $11.0 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Binary options fraud
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-30
The facts, as recorded
- The SEC filed its original complaint on June 5, 2013 and an amended complaint on May 6, 2014, against Banc de Binary Ltd. (Cyprus), Oren Shabat Laurent, E.T. Binary Options Ltd. (Israel), BO Systems Ltd. (Seychelles) and BDB Services Ltd. (Seychelles).
- The SEC alleged the company began operating in 2009 and started soliciting US customers in 2010 through YouTube videos, spam email and other online advertising, while falsely representing it maintained a Wall Street office; a company representative said it had about 250,000 investors in fall 2012, 50 to 60 percent of them in the United States.
- Final judgments were entered February 23, 2016, and the settlement was announced March 9, 2016: $7.1 million in disgorgement and a $1.95 million SEC penalty, plus a separate $2 million CFTC civil penalty from its parallel action, a combined total of more than $11 million.
- Oren Laurent personally paid $150,000 as part of the settlement. The SEC distributed the disgorgement and penalty funds to harmed investors through a Fair Fund.
- The settlement permanently bars the defendants from offering or trading off-exchange binary options to US customers.
Why this case matters
This is the earliest case documented on this page and one of the first major US regulatory actions against a binary options operator, predating the criminal prosecutions that followed later in the decade. It established the pattern every subsequent case on this page repeats: an offshore company, false claims of a US location, and a settlement that returns a fraction of what was taken.
A quarter-million customers, mostly never registered
According to the SEC, the company had roughly 250,000 investors by the fall of 2012, more than half of them in the United States, built through YouTube advertising and spam email rather than any registered broker-dealer relationship. Banc de Binary was never registered to offer securities or solicit US investors at all.
The Wall Street claim
Part of the SEC’s case rested on a specific, checkable falsehood: the company represented to customers that it maintained a presence on Wall Street. It did not. The operation ran from Cyprus, with affiliated entities in Israel and the Seychelles, a jurisdictional spread that later networks on this page would repeat.
The caveat
This case ended in a settlement in which the defendants consented to final judgments without admitting or denying the SEC and CFTC’s specific factual allegations, a standard structure in civil securities and commodities settlements. What is a matter of public record: the complaints were filed, the court entered the judgments described above, and the defendants accepted a permanent ban from offering off-exchange binary options to US customers.
Sources
- Federal Court Orders Banc de Binary Ltd., ET Binary Options Ltd., BO Systems Ltd., BDB Services Ltd. & Oren Shabat Laurent to Pay More than $9 Mln in Restitution & a Civil Monetary Penalty for Violating the CFTC's Ban on Off-Exchange Binary Options. US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed 2026-09-30. Supports: The defendant names and jurisdictions, the June 2013 and May 2014 complaint dates, the February 26, 2016 consent order, the $2 million CFTC civil penalty, and the permanent trading ban.
- Banc de Binary Ltd., et al.. US Securities and Exchange Commission. Accessed 2026-09-30. Supports: The $7.1 million disgorgement figure, the $1.95 million SEC penalty, the combined $11 million total with the CFTC's parallel penalty, Oren Laurent's $150,000 personal payment, and the Fair Fund distribution to investors.