Manchester City's new training kit sponsor, cryptocurrency exchange OKX, is under investigation in Canada for "violating securities law" and "failing to comply with the registration and prospectus requirements under Ontario securities law", Josimar can reveal.
By Philippe Auclair
Only a matter of days after announcing that they had made opaque online bookmaker 8Xbet their "official Asian betting partner' (Josimar's investigation into 8Xbet can be read here), Manchester City closed a sponsorship deal with OKX, one of the world's leading cryptocurrency and derivatives exchanges, which industry sources say will add 20 million US dollars to the club's income in 2022-23. OKX had been Manchester City's "Official Cryptocurrency Exchange Partner" since March of this year already.
OKX, formerly OKex (*), was founded in 2017 by Chinese entrepreneur Mingxing "Star" Xu, and, after relocating from Malta, is currently headquartered in the Seychelles after being prohibited to operate in mainland China in the autumn of 2021, following a blanket ban on companies dealing crypto assets by Xi Jingping's government. OKX claims to be "the world's second largest crypto exchange".
The Ontario Securities Commission confirmed to Josimar that Aux Cayes Fintech Co. Ltd, the Mahé-based company which controls OKX, was the subject of proceedings at the Capital Markets Tribunal of the province of Ontario. The main allegations are that OKX had "engaged [...] in the business of trading in securities without the necessa...