USDT-issuing Tether law firm Roche Friedman is seeking the removal of Kyle Roche as counsel in the Bitfinex and Tether class action lawsuit.
In the year On August 31, Elliott Greenfield of Debevois & Plimpton LLP filed a court order demanding that the law firm representing Tether and Bitfinex remove Roche from the case and ensure that they return or destroy all documents they provided to the defendant. And I will not share it with any third party including Ava Labs.
The question comes as the recent CryptoLeaks exposure continues, shortly after Roche filed a notice of motion to withdraw from the Tether unit, alleging that the US attorney had a secret agreement to “harm” Ava Labs’ competitors through the exchange of AVAX tokens and Ava Labs equity.
Greenfield said Roche’s statements published on the CryptoLeaks website raised “serious concerns” that Kyle Roche “might be abusing the discovery process” and that he is “misusing information.”
He claims to be Ava Lab’s ‘crypto expert’ because he ‘charged[s] Half of the companies in the space and ‘know[s] Where is this market going’ because he has ‘seen the inside of every crypto company’.
Greenfield notes that the concerns are highly related to the case, noting that Roche Friedman LLP has “submitted numerous document requests seeking information clearly unrelated to the claims and defenses in this lawsuit.”
The lawyer also argued that the documents needed to be suppressed, saying they “contain not only confidential, competitively sensitive information about the defendants’ business, but information that, if disclosed, would endanger the privacy and security of the defendants and their clients.”
As Kyle Roche filed a motion to remove himself from the case and remove others, Greenfield said Roche’s resignation “does nothing to address concerns about abuse of discovery.”
“Even if he is no longer counsel of record, he will have access to discovery materials, retain the ability to direct the behavior of other attorneys at the firm, and profit from any potential recovery in this lawsuit.”
Greenfield added that “the dismissal will not prejudice the plaintiffs” because they will continue to be represented by “two other large and experienced firms,” including Celendy Gay Ellsberg PLLC and Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky LLP.
In the year The class action lawsuit filed in 2019 alleges that Tether and Bitfinex manipulate the crypto market by issuing unbacked Tether (USDT) “in an effort to demonstrate to the market that there is significant organic demand for crypto products.”
In the past few days, Roche has pulled out of lawsuits against Binance, Solana, Tron, BitMEX, Nexo and Dfinity.