PANews reported on April 30 that according to CoinDesk, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas made a final ruling, finding that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)'s sanctions against Tornado Cash were illegal and permanently prohibiting its sanctions against the mixer. This marks the end of a two-year legal dispute in favor of the privacy protocol.
Court documents show that although OFAC voluntarily removed Tornado Cash from the sanctions list in March 2024, Judge Robert Pitman noted its intention to reserve the right to reimpose sanctions in the future and emphasized that "the ruling of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals must be executed". The lawyers of the six original plaintiffs had accused OFAC of attempting to evade judicial review through technical manipulation.
It is worth noting that Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov still face criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice, and the latter remains on the OFAC sanctions list. The ruling only applies to the protocol itself and does not involve judicial proceedings against the developers.
