NY Appellate Court Upholds $2.3M Judgment in Regal v. Tauber, Treats Crypto Forwards as Ordinary Contracts
Regal Commodities v Tauber (2024 NY Slip Op 01736)
Appellate Division Upholds Crypto Dealer’s $2.3 Million Judgment
A New York appeals court has affirmed a massive judgment against cryptocurrency trader Michael Tauber, ruling that his disputed digital-asset transactions were ordinary commodity deals governed by state contract law. The decision leaves little room for crypto-specific defenses and signals that courts will treat many digital tokens the same as barrels of oil or bushels of wheat.
The dispute began when Regal Commodities, a New York-based trading firm, accused Tauber of failing to pay for a series of off-exchange Bitcoin and Ethereum forwards it had arranged on his behalf. Tauber countered that the contracts were illegal because they involved unregistered securities or commodities and therefore should be void. The trial court rejected that defense, entered summary judgment for Regal, and the Second Department has now confirmed it. The panel held that once the parties agreed on price, quantity, and delivery, the deals were enforceable regardless of the underlying asset’s regulatory status.
Judges found no evidence that Regal acted as an unlicensed broker or that the contracts violated public policy. They also rejected Tauber’s attempt to recharacterize the trades as securities offerings, noting that simple forward contracts for future delivery do not automatically become securities merely because the subject matter is cryptocurrency. With the appeals court siding squarely with the plaintiff, Tauber must now satisfy the $2.3 million award plus interest, and similar counterparties may find their own payment disputes harder to dodge.
In plain English, the ruling tells traders and platforms that New York courts will enforce crypto contracts the same way they enforce any other commodity trade. Arguments that a token “might” be a security or “could” require federal registration carry little weight unless backed by specific facts and SEC action. That lowers litigation risk for exchanges and prime brokers while raising the cost of walking away from losing positions.
For markets, the decision strengthens the hand of traditional finance firms entering digital assets and weakens the decentralization narrative that smart contracts or novel tokens somehow escape ordinary commercial rules. It also hints that stablecoins or yield-bearing tokens used in DeFi forwards could face the same treatment, narrowing the zone where traders can claim regulatory uncertainty as a get-out-of-jail card. Exchanges listing forwards or offering OTC crypto swaps now have clearer precedent that payment obligations will be honored, while traders contemplating default face steeper legal exposure.
The message is blunt: if you trade it, you pay for it—crypto or not.
