Plaintiffs Amend Complaint Against Tether in Crypto Lawsuit

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As a seasoned researcher with extensive experience in the legal and financial sectors, I find the latest development in the Tether and Bitfinex class action lawsuit intriguing. Having closely followed this case since its initial filing in 2019, I’ve seen it evolve through various twists and turns.

In an ongoing class action lawsuit against Tether and Bitfinex in the Southern District of New York, plaintiffs have recently filed an updated complaint. They allege that these crypto companies manipulated markets and breached antitrust laws through contrived methods. Specifically, they claim that Tether and Bitfinex conspired to inflate cryptocurrency prices.

The complaint alleges that Tether’s USDT stablecoin, which is supposedly pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar, was introduced into the cryptocurrency market without being fully backed by actual dollars. This supposedly created a false impression of heightened demand, enabling credit trading and the lending out of funds, which in turn allegedly inflated prices.

In their most recent grievance, the lawyers representing the plaintiffs zero in on three key allegations against the defendant: suspected violations of the Commodities Exchange Act (CEA) through market manipulation, charges of monopolization, and claims of anticompetitive practices – all infringements of the Sherman Antitrust Act. This simplified rendition marks a departure from past complaints which enumerated eight and twelve distinct causes of action respectively.

A representative from Tether dismissed the accusations as completely baseless, expressing faith in overcoming what they referred to as “absurd conspiracy theories.”

In the ongoing legal dispute presided over by U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla, this is the third grievance that has emerged, with the initial filings taking place in 2019 and a revised complaint being submitted in 2020. The progress of the case has faced several hurdles; notably, the departure of the original plaintiffs’ legal representation, Roche Freedman, following the exposure of attorney Kyle Roche on video confessing to filing baseless lawsuits on behalf of his clients in 2022.

Last year, Tether and Bitfinex contested the plaintiffs’ request to modify their lawsuit against them for the second time, insisting that it was essentially an attempt to redo their complaint after the discovery phase had ended. Nevertheless, Judge Failla permitted the filing of the revised complaint in June.

As a researcher examining this legal matter, I can share that Matthew Script, Benjamin Leibowitz, Jason Leibowitz, and Pinchas Goldshtein, who are based in the United States and identified as lead plaintiffs, have been joined by other participants in civil class actions in the ongoing case.

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2024-07-16 10:05