Defendants claim that Lubin persuaded them to join ConsenSys AG in late 2014.
ConsenSys said that the plaintiffs were never employed by CSI and are now trying to cash in.
The Swiss firm ConsenSys AG, which focuses on Ethereum infrastructure development, has had 27 of its former employees sue the company’s founder and CEO, Joseph Lubin, in a New York court.
Lubin, one of Ethereum’s co-founders, allegedly as per the claims failed to fulfill his promise to give them shares in the firm. Instead, without their knowledge or permission, he moved the company’s important assets to a new entity in the United States.
Defendants claim that Lubin persuaded them to join ConsenSys AG (formerly Mesh) in late 2014. He wooed them with claims that his business will one day become Google of the crypto market.
Trying to Cash in Claims
He also allegedly guaranteed in a document that future share issuances would not reduce their shareholding. However, the plaintiffs claim that in 2020, Lubin engaged in a series of business operations designed to dilute their shares, thereby breaking his word.
Moreover, Lubin allegedly moved valuable assets from ConsenSys AG (including MetaMask, a prominent crypto wallet) to a newly created Delaware company named ConsenSys Software Inc. (CSI), with help from one of the defendants in the lawsuit, JPMorgan.
According to the plaintiffs, Lubin concealed these transactions and left them out of CSI’s ownership structure. Instead, they were given stock in ConsenSys AG, which has since depreciated as a result of the company’s inability to replace its most important assets.
After two years of failed litigation in a Swiss court, ConsenSys has dismissed the claims as “frivolous” and blamed the plaintiffs of trying to mislead U.S. courts. A representative for ConsenSys said that the plaintiffs were never employed by CSI and are now trying to cash in on the success of others.