A Federal High Court in Nigeria adjourned hearings in the tax evasion case filed by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) against Binance and its two executives. According to local reports, the court adjourned the hearings because FIRS could not serve the charges on Binance’s Head of Financial Crime Compliance, Tigran Gambaryan.
The hearing against Binance has been adjourned to April 8, and against Gambaryan and his colleague Nadeem Anjarwalla has been adjourned to April 19.
The FIRS brought four counts of tax evasion charges against Binance in March. These are “non-payment of value added tax (VAT), Company Income Tax, failure to tax returns, and complicity in aiding customers to evade taxes through its platform.”
Binance’s Head of Financial Crime Compliance Tigran Gambaryan, an American citizen, and his colleague Nadeem Anjarwalla, a UK-Kenya dual citizen, were invited by Nigerian authorities to talks after blocking the Binance website. When the duo landed in Abuja in February, they were detained and kept at an undisclosed place for questioning. As per reports, Anjarwalla fled from custody using a forged passport, and the Nigerian authorities have formally asked Interpol to arrest him and extradite him to Nigeria.
In a significant development, Binance said yesterday that Gambaryan and Anjarwalla are not part of the management team, and he doesn’t have decision-making powers.
