The controversial Tezos cryptocurrency project ensnared Bitcoin Suisse in a U.S. court case. Now, the crypto trading platform has notched up a key victory.
Lawsuits by disgruntled investors against Tezos, its Zug-based foundation, co-founder couple Kathleen and Arthur Breitman are winding their way through the U.S. court system. Bitcoin Suisse and founder and co-CEO Niklas Nikolajsen, which helped Tezos with the July 2017 initial coin offering which raised a then-record $232 million, were also ensnared.
Nikolajsen and Bitcoin Suisse can breath a sigh of relief: the crypto trading platform was dismissed by a U.S. district court judge from class action lawsuit. «The motion filed by Bitcoin Suisse [for dismissal] is granted without leave to amend», according to the ruling.
Collateral Damage
The dismissal effectively means that Bitcoin Suisse is off the hook. «Bitcoin Suisse was in the scope of this case, a classic collateral participant», the platform said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Bitcoin helped Tezos with its ICO, which at the time broke all records for fund-raising by issuing coins. Relations between Tezos' inventors, Arthur and Kathleen Breitman, and a Swiss foundation run by Johann Gevers quickly broke down. Bitcoin was forced to run interference, assuring investors that funds taken in as bitcoin or ether were safe, but wouldn't be refunded.
The fight was settled in February, but by that time Bitcoin Suisse was already part of ensuing class action litigation, along with major U.S. crypto investor Tim Draper (who also won a dismissal in U.S. district court).
Contribute vs Invest
Arthur and Kathleen Breitman and the Zug-based foundation which last month launched the coin project weren't as lucky as Draper and Bitcoin: the litigation against them will go ahead, the judge ruled. A lawyer for the Breitmans said he was confident the couple and their U.S. entity would be vindicated, and that no «contributors» were harmed.
The lawsuit centers on whether investors knew they were contributing, or donating without expecting tokens in return, or whether they were sold securities under U.S. law. The case is widely viewed as precedent-setting in the U.S., where regulators have until now been fuzzy about how they view coins and deferred much of the decision to individual U.S. states.
