The Exante lawsuit most people mean is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s 2015 civil case tied to a newswire hacking and insider trading scheme. The SEC named Malta-based brokerage Exante Ltd. as a defendant because the illegal trades ran through a brokerage account in the firm’s name, then dismissed its claims against Exante on February 17, 2016, refiling instead against nine of the firm’s customers. Separate regulatory actions in Malta, Russia, and Ukraine have followed in the years since.
Why the SEC Named Exante
Between 2010 and 2015, Ukrainian hackers Ivan Turchynov and Oleksandr Ieremenko broke into the computer systems of three major newswire services — Marketwired, PR Newswire, and Business Wire — and stole more than 150,000 corporate earnings announcements before they were made public. Traders in the United States, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere used the stolen releases to front-run the market. The SEC put the illegal profits at roughly $100 million; the parallel criminal case put the figure at about $30 million.
In August 2015, the SEC filed a sprawling civil complaint, SEC v. Dubovoy, et al. (Civil Action No. 2:15-cv-06076, D.N.J.), charging more than 30 individuals and entities. Exante Ltd. was included because trades tied to the stolen data had been routed through a brokerage account held in the firm’s name.
How the Case Against Exante Ended
Exante’s time as a defendant was brief. On February 17, 2016, the SEC filed a separate complaint, SEC v. Zavodchiko, et al. (Civil Action No. 2:16-cv-00845-MCA-LDW, D.N.J.), naming nine individuals and entities who had been Exante brokerage customers. The SEC alleged they used the account held in Exante’s name to reap more than $19.5 million in illicit profits from the stolen earnings data. The named defendants were Evgenii Zavodchiko, Extra Trading Company, Andrey Bokarev, Radion Panko, Green Road Corp., Natalia Andreevna Alepko, Solar Line Inc., Anton Maslov, and Tarek Investors Inc. They were charged with violating the antifraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
On the same day it filed those charges, the SEC dismissed its earlier claims against Exante Ltd. itself. The effect was to separate the firm from the customers who had used its platform to trade on stolen information.
What Happened to the Traders and Hackers
The criminal side of the case moved through two federal districts. In the District of New Jersey, Arkadiy Dubovoy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in February 2016; his son Igor Dubovoy pleaded guilty the month before. Hacker Vadym Iermolovych admitted to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and aggravated identity theft in May 2016. In the Eastern District of New York, Alexander Garkusha pleaded guilty in December 2015.
The most prominent trial ended in the July 2018 conviction of Vitaly Korchevsky, a former Morgan Stanley vice president turned hedge fund manager, after a four-week jury trial in Brooklyn. He was found guilty of securities fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, computer intrusion conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. In March 2019 he was sentenced to 60 months in prison, fined $250,000, and ordered to forfeit $14.4 million. Vladislav Khalupsky, Leonid Momotok, and Aleksandr Garkusha were also convicted and ordered to pay restitution and forfeit assets.
By June 2020, the SEC had entered final judgments against eight civil defendants, including Khalupsky and Memelland Investments Ltd., with collective monetary liabilities exceeding $14 million; those amounts were largely deemed satisfied by the criminal restitution and forfeiture orders. The SEC reported it had recovered over $50 million and obtained injunctive relief from 13 other defendants across the broader litigation. One central figure remains at large: hacker Oleksandr Ieremenko is the subject of two federal indictments, sits on the U.S. Secret Service’s Most Wanted list, and carries a State Department reward of up to $1 million.
Malta: Dismissed Charges, Later Fine, and a Constitutional Fight
After the SEC first named Exante in 2015, the Malta Financial Services Authority dismissed money laundering charges against the firm in October of that year. The Maltese Attorney General and other local authorities dropped criminal and civil allegations against the company and its directors, and Exante’s Malta license stayed intact.
Enforcement returned later. In September 2021, Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit fined XNT Ltd. — the entity formerly known as Exante Ltd., renamed in October 2016 — a total of €244,679 over alleged shortcomings in its anti-money-laundering controls. The FIAU cited insufficient source-of-wealth documentation, inadequate transaction security, poor due diligence, and a money laundering reporting officer who lacked sufficient seniority.
XNT challenged the fine. In July 2023, Judge Joanne Vella Cuschieri of the First Hall of the Civil Court, sitting in its constitutional jurisdiction, revoked the penalty. The court ruled that the FIAU’s power to impose what amounted to punitive fines without full criminal proceedings violated the right to a fair trial under both the Maltese Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. The judge directed that future proceedings against XNT could only continue once Malta established an independent body to adjudicate such cases.
The FIAU and the State Advocate appealed. The Constitutional Court, led by Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti, overturned the July 2023 ruling, holding that the FIAU’s fining mechanism does not breach fair-hearing rights so long as the penalized entity has access to full judicial review, including the ability to present fresh evidence before the Court of Appeal. XNT’s lawyers, José Herrera and David Camilleri, said they intended to challenge the decision at the European Court of Human Rights.
Russian Blacklist and Ukrainian Sanctions
In 2021, the Central Bank of Russia blacklisted EXT Ltd., Exante’s Cyprus-registered subsidiary, citing “signs of illegal professional participation in the securities market.” The blacklisting barred EXT Ltd. from operating in Russia. The Malta Financial Services Authority took the position that because EXT Ltd. holds a CySEC license (License No. 165/12, issued February 2012) and uses EU freedom-of-services rules to passport into Malta, the entity falls outside the MFSA’s enforcement jurisdiction.
In July 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky enacted sanctions against EXT Ltd. under Ukraine’s national security legislation. The sanctions, entered into the Ukrainian NSDC State Register, run for ten years, from July 5, 2023 through July 5, 2033. The sanctions registry identifies the basis as threats to Ukraine’s national security; reporting by MaltaToday linked the measure to entities connected to the Russian Alfa Group.
Where Exante Stands Now
As of mid-2026, Exante remains an active global brokerage with approximately 658 employees. It holds licenses from CySEC in Cyprus, the FCA in the United Kingdom (secured in January 2023), the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong, and the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (added in January 2025, its sixth license). The firm opened an office in the Dubai International Financial Center in late 2024 and hired a regional head of compliance there in November 2025. In June 2026 it announced the Gecko Fund, a €1 million grant program aimed at supporting open-source financial market projects focused on AI-driven cyber threats.
Exante does not offer trading accounts to U.S.-based clients and is not regulated by the SEC. It operates through several licensed entities globally, including LHCM Ltd. in the UK, XHK Ltd. in Hong Kong, and EXT Ltd. in Cyprus, the same entity that remains subject to Ukrainian sanctions through 2033.