PANews reported on April 30 that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas made a final ruling, determining that the sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) against Tornado Cash were illegal, permanently prohibiting its sanctions against the mixer. This marks the conclusion of a two-year legal dispute with a victory for the privacy protocol party.
Court documents show that although OFAC proactively removed Tornado Cash from the sanctions list in March 2024, Judge Robert Pitman noted that he retains the intent to re-impose sanctions in the future and emphasized that 'the ruling of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals must be enforced.' The six plaintiffs' lawyers in this case had accused OFAC of attempting to evade judicial review through technical maneuvers.
It is worth noting that the two developers of Tornado Cash, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, still face criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice, the latter of whom is still on the OFAC sanctions list. This ruling only pertains to the protocol itself and does not involve judicial proceedings against the developers.