The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has settled its court case against crypto exchange HTX, formerly known as Huobi, after the exchange left the UK market. HTX’s operator, Huobi Global S.A., has given the High Court undertakings that it will not knowingly promote crypto services to UK consumers in breach of UK law, the FCA said on 29 October.
The undertakings are set out in a court order dated 27 October 2026, which the FCA has published. They run until 21 October 2031.
“Crypto firms should be under no illusion: being based overseas does not put them beyond the reach of UK law,” said Steve Smart, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight. “Our action means HTX is leaving the UK and can no longer target UK consumers. The message to other firms is clear: follow the rules or face the consequences.”
What HTX has agreed to
The order is a Tomlin order, a consent order that pauses a case on terms the parties have agreed in a separate, private settlement. Here the FCA and Huobi Global, which the order describes as a company incorporated in Panama, signed a confidential settlement agreement dated 16 October 2026. All further proceedings are stayed except to enforce it, and there is no order as to costs. The FCA says the settlement “does not constitute an admission of liability or wrongdoing” by Huobi Global or anyone else.
In the schedule to the order, Huobi Global undertakes that it will not knowingly, directly or indirectly, communicate a financial promotion in breach of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, the rule that bans unauthorised firms from advertising financial services in the UK without approval. The undertaking names three channels: the htx.com website or similar sites, any HTX app, and social media, “including without limitation X, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Tik Tok, You Tube, Discord, Medium and/or LinkedIn”.
According to the FCA, HTX is no longer active in the UK. “Consumers can no longer make deposits, and new UK users cannot sign up to the platform,” it says, and HTX “will not target, solicit or actively seek to engage UK consumers”. HTX’s own UK notice, dated 16 October, says it does not serve UK residents and that restricted UK accounts cannot deposit, trade or transact. Users with assets left on the platform can ask HTX for a one-time 48-hour withdrawal window.
How the case got here
The FCA began proceedings in the High Court on 21 October 2025 and announced them on 10 February 2026. At the time it said HTX had kept publishing illegal promotions on its website and on TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube despite earlier warnings, and that it hid the identities of its owners and website operators. “This is the first time we’ve taken enforcement action against a crypto firm illegally marketing their products to UK consumers,” Smart said then.
Because the people behind HTX were unknown, the FCA sued Huobi Global alongside four groups of “persons unknown”, including whoever controls HTX’s social media accounts. In February the court let the FCA serve the claim outside the UK and by alternative means. The FCA also asked social media companies to block HTX’s accounts for UK users and asked for its apps to be removed from the Google Play and Apple app stores in the UK.
Why a settlement with an overseas exchange still matters
The FCA did not win a judgment here, and it did not need one. It got the exchange out of the UK market and secured promises given to the court itself, with the claim kept alive so that they can be enforced. That is a practical route for a regulator facing an offshore firm with no UK office and, by the FCA’s account, a deliberately opaque structure. HTX had started to restrict new UK sign-ups soon after the claim was issued, but in February the FCA said existing users could still see unlawful promotions and HTX had given no assurance the change was permanent. The order now gives that assurance a five-year term.
The limits matter too. The undertakings cover promotions that Huobi Global “knowingly” makes, and the settlement’s terms are private, so outsiders cannot see what else was agreed. The case also sits in a gap in UK law: crypto remains largely unregulated except for anti-money-laundering checks and promotions until the full licensing regime arrives in October 2027. Until then, promotion rules are one of the few tools the FCA has against offshore exchanges, alongside its warning list. Other regulators are trying similar tactics. In Kazakhstan, a court in the Astana International Financial Centre recently barred HTX’s operator and five other platforms from offering unlicensed services there and ordered that Google and Apple be served.
What UK users should do
The FCA tells UK users of HTX to read the information on HTX’s website about withdrawing any remaining assets. It also reminds consumers to check a firm’s permissions with its Firm Checker and that cryptoassets are high-risk investments. The regulator is meanwhile consulting on how its rules will apply to other parts of the market, including decentralised finance, before the 2027 regime begins.
Sources
- FCA, “FCA stops HTX’s crypto promotions”, 29 October 2026
- High Court, Tomlin Order of Deputy Master Holden, FCA v Huobi Global S.A. and others, Claim No. FS-2025-000015, 27 October 2026 (PDF, published by the FCA)
- FCA, “HTX (formerly Huobi): legal proceedings information”, updated 29 October 2026
- FCA, “FCA takes action against HTX to stop illegal financial promotions”, 10 February 2026
- HTX, “Important Notice Regarding Availability of HTX Services in the United Kingdom”, 16 October 2026
Related stories
- Kazakhstan’s AIFC Court Bars Coinbase and Five Others From Unlicensed Services
- UK FCA Crypto Licensing Regime: October 2027 Deadline, £150K Minimum Capital, and the End of the Wild West
- FCA Proposes DeFi Guidance and New Crypto Exclusions Before 2027 Regime
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