Court Denies Bilzerian’s Bid to Vacate 2001 SEC Injunction, Keeps Trading Ban Intact

Court Blocks Bilzerian’s Fresh Bid to Escape 2001 Injunction

A federal judge in Washington just slammed the door on Paul Bilzerian’s latest attempt to unwind a twenty-three-year-old SEC injunction, ruling that the convicted stock manipulator cannot relitigate issues already decided against him. The decision keeps Bilzerian’s trading bar and disgorgement order intact, signaling that old securities violations carry lasting teeth even in an era of crypto-native market making.

Bilzerian and his family-run trusts filed an emergency motion seeking to vacate the 2001 permanent injunction that barred them from future securities-law violations and required them to disgorge $62 million in illegal profits. They argued that changed circumstances—chiefly the rise of decentralized finance and the SEC’s evolving stance on digital assets—made continued enforcement “inequitable.” The SEC countered that the injunction is still necessary to protect investors and that Bilzerian had shown no good-faith compliance. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth agreed with the Commission, holding that the movants failed to identify any “significant change” in law or fact that would justify Rule 60(b) relief. The court further found that Bilzerian’s repeated attempts to skirt the injunction through offshore structures constituted contempt, not changed circumstances.

The ruling hands the SEC a clean procedural victory while underscoring the durability of legacy enforcement tools. Bilzerian and his trusts remain subject to the trading bar and face mounting civil-contempt exposure if they continue trying to trade through proxies. Meanwhile, the Commission gains precedent that can be cited against any future defendant—crypto or otherwise—who claims that market evolution alone dissolves prior judgments.

In plain English, once the SEC locks an injunction into place, defendants cannot simply point to “new tech” and walk away; they must show an actual, fact-based shift in their own compliance posture. The decision also reminds crypto issuers and market makers that older securities precedents still govern how courts view manipulative schemes, whether executed with shell companies in the 1980s or anonymous wallets today.

For traders and DeFi protocols testing the edges of market structure, the message is blunt: enforcement doctrines age better than code. Regulators now have fresh authority to argue that injunctions are evergreen, tightening the noose around repeat offenders while leaving compliant actors room to operate. Watchdogs will almost certainly dust off similar legacy orders in coming enforcement waves against unregistered trading platforms and yield aggregators.

Old injunctions never sunset; they just wait for the next wallet.