Canada: Commercial Activity

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## Commercial Activity Canada's crypto commercial-activity picture this cycle is dominated by one matter: FINTRAC's Notice of Violation against Peken Global Limited, operating as the KuCoin exchange, dated 31 March 2025, for failing to register as a foreign money-services business, failing to report large virtual-currency transactions, and failing to file suspicious transaction reports. The penalty was reported at approximately USD 14.09 million, or roughly CAD 19.5 to 20 million, and remains under appeal to the Federal Court of Canada, unresolved as of 11 October 2026. This is both an enforcement matter and a commercial one: it represents the clearest signal this cycle of FINTRAC's willingness to apply large penalties to foreign-domiciled crypto exchanges operating in the Canadian market without local registration, and the unresolved appeal means its precedential weight for other offshore exchanges serving Canadian users is not yet settled. No other disclosed commercial transaction, such as an acquisition, financing round, or material partnership involving a Canada-nexus crypto entity, was identified within the one-year window this cycle. ## Outlook The Federal Court of Canada's eventual ruling on Peken Global's appeal is the single development most likely to clarify the practical reach of FINTRAC's registration and reporting requirements against foreign-domiciled exchanges serving Canadian users, and its outcome will likely shape how other offshore platforms assess their own Canadian-market compliance exposure.