Tether (USDT) wants law firm Roche Freedman to be “revoked” as counsel for the Bitfinex and Tether class action lawsuit, following a motion by Kyle Roche to be removed as counsel in the case.
In an injunction request filed Wednesday by Elliot Greenfield of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, the law firm representing Tether and Bitfinex requested that Roche’s law firm be removed from the case entirely and that it certify that it has returned or destroyed all documents issued by the defendant and has not shared them with any third party, including Ava Labs .
The request comes shortly after Roche filed a notice of motion to withdraw from the Tether class action lawsuit amid protests. fallout from a recent CryptoLeaks exposurewhich alleged that the US attorney had a secret pact to “harm” Ava Labs’ competitors in exchange for AVAX tokens and Ava Labs shares.
Greenfield said that Roche’s statements posted on the CryptoLeaks website raised “serious concern” that Kyle Roche “may be abusing the discovery process” and “misusing information” he learns through litigation:
“He claims he is Ava Lab’s ‘cryptocurrency expert’ because he ‘sues half the companies in the space’ and ‘knows where this market is going’ because he has ‘seen the guts of every single cryptocurrency company.’ ”
Greenfield said the concerns are highly relevant to the case, noting that Roche Freedman LLP “has served a number of document requests seeking information that have no apparent connection to the claims and defenses in this lawsuit.”
The lawyer has also stressed the need for the documents to be suppressed, “since they include not only confidential and sensitive information from the point of view of competition about the businesses of the defendants, but also information that, if disclosed, would threaten the privacy and security of Defendants and their clients.”
While Kyle Roche has filed motions to withdraw from the case and others, Greenfield said Roche’s withdrawal “does little or nothing to address the serious issues surrounding the potential misuse of discovery:”
“Even if he is no longer the attorney of record, he would still have access to discovery materials, retain the ability to direct the conduct of other attorneys in his firm, and benefit from any potential recovery in this lawsuit.”
Greenfield added that the “removal would not harm the plaintiffs” as they would continue to be represented by “two other large and experienced firms”, including Selendy Gay Elsberg PLLC and Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky LLP.
Class-action lawsuit launched in 2019 alleged that Tether and Bitfinex manipulated the cryptocurrency market by issuing unbacked USDT “in an effort to signal to the market that there was a huge organic demand for crypto assets.”
In recent days, Roche has also withdrawn from lawsuits from Binance, Solana, Tron, BitMEX, Nexo, and Dfinity.
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