U.S. Treasury Department says ”final judgment not necessary” in Tornado Cash lawsuit… Industry reacts

They argued that the U.S. Treasury Department's removal of Tornado Cash from the sanctions list made the lawsuit over the sanctions moot.
In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it had identified a North Korean hacking group, the Lazarus Group, as a hacking group.
Tornado Cash Group, which is a cryptocurrency miner, was used by the protocol to scam users and sanctioned the protocol.
Tornado Cash users filed a lawsuit, but after the court ruled in Tornado Cash's favor, the U.S. Treasury Department filed a lawsuit against Tornado Cash on March 21.
The Treasury Department subsequently removed several smart contract addresses associated with RunedCash from its sanctions list (SDN list), after which the department said the matter was "no longer moot."
The Treasury Department argued that "federal courts must continue to maintain their constitutional authority to exercise jurisdiction over the case (Article III) and therefore cannot afford further arguments about futility."
"It's necessary," said Coinbase's chief legal officer, Paul Grewal.
Grewal argued that the Treasury Department's arguments were not in line with legal procedure.
Grewal said, "The Treasury Department reluctantly removed Tornado Cash from the sanctions list, and then argued that the lawsuit became moot without a final ruling. But this is not legally justified."
"The voluntary cessation exception means that a defendant may have ceased the conduct in question, but they know it," he said.
However, this does not render the lawsuit pointless. The defendant must prove that the conduct in question is "reasonably unlikely to recur."
Grewal cited a 2024 US Supreme Court ruling as an example.
In a case where Fikre was placed on the "no-fly list" and then removed, the Supreme Court ruled that the government should not place it on the list again in the future.
Similarly, the Treasury Department has removed Tornado Cash from its sanctions list, but has not given any assurances that it will not add it back in the future.
"This is insufficient and the court will make this clear," he stressed.