- Joseph Lubin is being sued for allegedly vaporizing his employees’ equity stocks.
- TruthLabs pointed out that Consensys applied for and acquired $10 million in COVID-19 relief.
- A Consensys spokesperson dismissed the allegations and called out the suits fired at them.
Joseph Lubin, founder of ConsenSys, has faced hot waters as 27 of his former employees moved their legal case against their billionaire boss from Switzerland to the United States.
The legal battle, filed in New York courts, revolves around the Brooklyn-based global blockchain firm allegedly cheating out of the equity deal he promised to his previous staff. Lubin pledged early hires that joining the company would entail ownership of equity in the ConsenSys “hub” and in each of the “spokes” that the company developed.
The plaintiffs claimed that the now-rebranded Consensys has raised over $726 million from investors at a valuation of more than $7 billion. However, the ex-staff now reportedly own “virtually worthless pieces of paper” instead of equity.
Commenting on the news, on-chain sleuth TruthLabs tweeted that Consensys applied for and acquired the highest available $10 million in COVID-19 relief PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) funds within weeks of becoming an American company. Strikingly, the maximum funds received were based on prior employment payroll numbers—supposedly the ones they booted off.
The PPP request was purportedly approved by the now defunct Signature Bank. Moreover, the size of the company’s approved PPP loan showed that the number of Consensys employees declared should match the estimated funds if everyone were paid at or beyond the $100,000 PPP wage eligibility bracket. Otherwise, the minimum number of employees that the company must have had should be 480.
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