South Korean Court Overturns Upbit AML Suspension Ruling

A South Korean court has ruled in favor of Dunamu, the operator of Upbit cryptocurrency exchange, and overturned a three-month partial business suspension imposed by the country's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

The court found that the regulatory framework underpinning the FIU's enforcement action lacked sufficient clarity, specifically for transactions below 1 million won. The lack of specificity weakened the legal basis for the sanction.

The ruling also addressed the regulator's claim that Dunamu failed to implement adequate AML measures. It determined that the FIU did not provide clear or detailed guidance on what compliance actions were required in practice, and therefore the court found that Dunamu took its own measures which may have been deemed insufficient but did not demonstrate intent or gross negligence.

Separately, Bithumb initiated legal proceedings to recover a small portion of Bitcoin still unreturned after a major payout error earlier this year. The exchange is seeking a provisional attachment order targeting users who have not yet returned mistakenly received funds.