Key facts:
According to the complaint, the deal between ConsenSys and JP Morgan was in 2020.
ConsenSys rejected the accusations and indicated that the claim is inaccurate.
A group of shareholders belonging to the Ethereum development company, ConsenSys AG (CAG), filed an audit request with the Swiss justice for the alleged illegal sale, to the US bank JP Morgan, of part of the business, including the MetaMask wallet. .
The transaction resulted in financial institutions such as JP Morgan acquiring an influential stake in MetaMask and Infura, two of the most widely used infrastructure tools on Ethereum. release Arthur Falls, former employee of ConsenSys AG.
According to Falls and 35 other former employees representing more than 50% of all known ConsenSys shareholders, in 2020, core intellectual property and subsidiaries were “illegally transferred” from CAG to a new entity, called ConsenSys Software Incorporated (CSI).
The purported transfer was “in exchange for 10% ownership of CSI and compensation for a $39 million loan from founder Joseph Lubin,” the document states.
The text maintains that the transaction was to the detriment of CAG’s minority shareholders and to the benefit of Lubin himself, who is the majority shareholder of both companies (CAG and CSI).
Falls argues that Joseph Lubin and Frithjof Weinert, another board member, acted as directors at both CAG and CSI and the double representation is against the law Switzerland and probably also under US law, says the former employee.
ConsenSys response
The accusations by Falls and the group of shareholders were refuted by Diana Richter, head of marketing and brand of ConsenSys, assuring that what is stated in the statement is “inaccurate in terms of the facts”.
“The business fundamentals and operating environment are completely different today than they were at the time of the transaction. The group would like to apply a valuation that could be achieved today to a set of projects that were previously monetized during the darkest days of COVID-19 when the transaction took place.” said Richter.
The arrival of JP Morgan at ConsenSys
As mentioned at the beginning, there was an alleged sale of MetaMask, owned by ConsenSys, to the JP Morgan bank.
Although nothing is clear until the justice acts in this case, what is certain is that the financial institution participated in a financing round of the company in April 2021, a fact reported by CriptoNoticias.
During the collection, ConsenSys obtained USD 65 million for integration into its application platform Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects on Ethereum, including the popular wallet.
The investors were JP Morgan, Mastercard, and UBS, along with blockchain-focused tech startups like Protocol Labs, the Maker Foundation, Fenbushi, and Alameda Research.