US Treasury believes Tornado Cash case does not require final judgment

according to Cointelegraph, the U.S. Department of the Treasury stated that the legal challenge brought against Tornado Cash should be considered "undisputed" due to its removal from the sanctions list on March 21. The U.S. Department of the Treasury stated in a declaration: "Because this court, like all federal courts, has a continuing obligation to ensure its jurisdiction over cases under Article III of the Constitution, it is necessary to debate the 'undisputed' issue." However, Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal believes that the Treasury's desire to declare the case undisputed before a formal judgment is not in accordance with proper legal procedure. He stated: "After reluctantly removing Tornado Cash from the list, they now claim that there is no need for a final court judgment. But this is not a legal requirement, they know it themselves." Grewal pointed out: "According to the 'voluntary cessation exception,' a defendant's decision to cease the challenged conduct can only make the case undisputed if the defendant can prove that the conduct 'is not reasonably expected to recur.' " He also cited a 2024 Supreme Court ruling, which found that removing U.S. citizen Yonas Fikre from the no-fly list did not render his legal challenge moot, as the ban could be reinstated in the future. "Here, the Treasury also removed the Tornado Cash entity from the specially designated nationals list, but provided no assurance that it would not be listed again. This is not enough, we will make this clear to the district court," Grewal added. In August 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash, accusing the protocol of assisting the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group in money laundering. Subsequently, several Tornado Cash users filed lawsuits against the regulatory agencies. After a favorable ruling for Tornado Cash by the court, the U.S. Department of the Treasury removed the mixing service from the sanctions list on March 21 and deleted dozens of smart contract addresses related to Tornado from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.