Lawyers for organizers of Tezos’ initial coin offering allege that lead plaintiff Arman Anvari, a lawyer, has “a long and ugly history of making racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic remarks against the parties and others” and that he has taken action that could torpedo the lawsuit.
In court filings filed Thursday, attorneys for Cooley and Baker Marquart identified pseudonyms they believe Anvari used on social media sites that used anti-Semitic slurs in reference to Arthur and Kathleen Breitman, the couple behind Tezos, a platform for digital currencies in development.
Perhaps more problematic for the plaintiff’s case, however, is that the Breitmans’ attorneys allege that Anvari offered to buy out other investors’ positions in the long-delayed initial coin offering at the price they paid for it — a fact they believe undermining investors’ position as Anvari were harmed by the initial coin offering. They also say he posted online that blockchain-based tokens are not securities — a statement that contradicts the entire theory behind the lawsuit.
The filing comes at a time when HGT Law and LTL Attorneys, lead counsel in the lawsuit, asked in late January to replace Anvari with a new lead plaintiff and move forward with group certification in the landmark case.
“Mr Anvari has obtained the court’s permission to withdraw from the lawsuit and will no longer be a party to the lawsuit at this time. Neither party objects to his withdrawal,” lead plaintiff attorney Hung Ta said in an email statement. “Meanwhile, a number of other individuals have come forward to step in as lead plaintiffs. We are strongly focused on assisting the court in this case and further advancing the lawsuits against Tezos for the benefit of our class members.”
Ta declined to answer a follow-up question about Anvari’s alleged posts.
In an email statement, Anvari said that while he no longer wished to be involved in the lawsuit, he had “denied the defendants’ malicious and unfounded attacks on my character and their claims that I was hateful towards any group of people.” .
Tezos supporters have faced a series of class-action lawsuits since November 2017, alleging that the $232 million blockbuster Initial coin offering – in which investors prepaid digital tokens based on the Tezos blockchain, which was blocked by technical delays – the company violated US securities laws and misled investors.
U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg named Anvari as lead plaintiff in March last year after former Latham & Watkins employees Baker McKenzie and Perkins Coie invested $264,007.50 worth of cryptocurrency Ether in the proposed initial coin offering of Tezos had. Seeborg later dropped claims that Breitmans and Dynamic Ledger Solutions, the blockchain company they co-founded, violated US securities laws in violation of a motion to dismiss.
Attorneys for Cooley and Baker Marquart were not immediately available for comment Friday.
In the defendants’ lawsuit filed Thursday, the Breitmans’ attorneys argue that the plaintiffs should not be allowed to replace Anvari and focus on class certification. Defenders posit that there was a high likelihood that Anvari was aware of the “Terms and Conditions” of the Tezos token offering, which stipulated that any Tezos-related disputes in Switzerland would be resolved under Swiss law.
“In addition, Anvari’s internet posts also contained numerous racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic insults, some of which were even directed at those involved in the Tezos project and other defendants,” the defense lawyers wrote, without detailing the alleged connections between Anvari and the company pseudonymous online posts that cite them.
In particular, defense attorneys point to a post in an exchange on the law school message board autoadmit.com that was made by someone with the username “.,.,.,,,.,.,.,.,,.,”. . .,.,.,.,,.,.,.,.”, which they claim is actually Anvari. According to the file, this user wrote a post that read “F*CK the Breitkikes”, in a obviously anti-Semitic reference to the Breitmans.
Anvari did not address the social media posts in a statement filed with a request to have him dismissed from the lawsuit. However, he wrote, “Based on various legal arguments the defendants seek to make, I believe I cannot adequately represent the alleged group and have directed my attorneys to seek my withdrawal as lead plaintiff.”
In Thursday’s filing, defense attorneys asked Seeborg to reconsider who should be lead plaintiff. They contend that a plaintiff whom Anvaris attorneys sought to represent is Australian and may not have standing to bring claims under US securities laws. They also claim that they should be able to find out whether the new proposed plaintiffs were aware of the “terms and conditions” of the ICO offerings that shifted disputes to Switzerland.
Meanwhile, one of the plaintiffs, who came second in the contest for lead plaintiff in this case, is asking Seeborg to reconsider its earlier decision.
“If Anvari cannot serve as lead plaintiff, the PSLRA does not authorize its attorneys to select one
replacement,” wrote the lawyer for Block & Leviton, who represents an Australian company called Trigon Trading, which had the next highest level of alleged losses. “Instead, the court must turn to the next best plaintiff who has filed a timely motion for nomination.” Lead Plaintiff. This plaintiff is Trine.
Block & Leviton’s attorneys say in the footnote that their client “can and will testify that he did not see the terms of contribution prior to the purchase.” However, Trigon’s filing did not address the defense’s arguments regarding the extraterritorial reach of US securities laws.
Block & Leviton’s Joel Fleming and Jacob Fleming declined to comment beyond the court filings.
Learn Crypto Trading, Yield Farms, Income strategies and more at CrytoAnswers
https://nov.link/cryptoanswers
Comments are closed.