Bitfinex and Tether Chief Technical Officer Paolo Ardoino will be deposed as part of a class-action lawsuit against both firms and their related executives.
This past Monday, a New York judge reportedly made the decision to deny Ardoino’s request to further delay his deposition until October of this year. Counsel for the defendants stated that additional time was needed in order to adequately prepare Ardoino for the case.
The lawsuit, which is brought by LeboBTC co-founder/CEO Jason Leibowitz back in 2019, claims that Bitfinex and Tether are responsible for more than $1.4 trillion in total damages to the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem.
The defendants, which reportedly include Crypto Capital, are now being accused of financial misconduct, like engaging in bank fraud as well as money laundering.
The issues raised in the depositions are cited as a source of disagreement between the two entities. The plaintiffs now plan to carefully look into the alleged inconsistencies in trade records, loan-making processes, as well as available Tether reserves.
They intend to find out whether the current reserves have been mixed or commingled with various other assets and exactly how large Tether’s reserves are at present, which are critical to the allegations made in the case.
Tether, the stablecoin issuer dominating the cryptocurrency markets, has firmly denied the allegations of engaging in any misconduct as part of a written statement that was shared on its official website before the filing of the lawsuit.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla said that the court’s concerns regarding the litigation’s pace and asked that Ardoino’s testimony begin to address pertinent issues.
She added that any inadequate preparation for the deposition by the defendants is mainly because of their own fault or shortcomings.
As noted in a separate blog post, Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District Of New York issued another “incisive” decision denying Shawn Dolifka’s request for leave “to amend his meritless class action complaint filed against Tether and Bitfinex companies.”
The team at Bitfinex wrote in a blog post that the Court noted that Dolifka allegedly attempted to raise arguments that were “already rejected” and his proposed “amended complaint failed to rectify the fundamental defects in his claims.”
Judgment will soon be “entered against Dolifka and in favor of the Tether and Bitfinex companies.” As previously noted, the entirety of the class action complaint “being dismissed at this stage of the proceedings punctuates the fact that plaintiff’s claims were void of any legal merit.”
Bitfinex further noted in a blog post that now and in the future, as they have said many times before, Bitfinex and Tether will “never fall prey to shameless litigation money grabs.”
Plaintiffs and their attorneys who have “attempted to bring these cases in the past—and any such individuals that attempt to bring these cases in the future—will all be left with the same amount: $0.”
As always, Tether and Bitfinex claim that they “remain laser-focused on continuing to deliver on our promises and ensure our customers and our community are protected.”