ConsenSys' Joe Lubin was brought to court by former employee for $13 million

ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin was sued by his former employee for allegedly committing fraud, breach of contract, unpaid profits, among other things, according to several documents filed to the New York County Supreme Court. 

The plaintiff, Harrison Hines, previously worked with Lubin at his ethereum-focus studio as the head of Token Foundry. In the documents filed to the court, he was seeking more than $13 million in relief over Lubin’s alleged legal violations, among which $12,827,000 will be for monetary damages on the contract breach and fraud claims, while the remaining will be for unpaid profits. 

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The court sent out the summons to Lubin on June 5, to which the defendant's team demanded a complaint be filed from Hines’ end. However, the date for Hines to follow up with this demand has already expired without any complaint being displayed on the New York County court website. It is unclear at this point what steps Hines will take in terms of moving forward with his legal action. 

Token Foundry was a ConsenSys-incubated startup that helps blockchain companies launch new tokens. During the 2018 bear market, the firm experienced a mass exodus of staff, among which Hines was included. The platform also struggled in conducting new token sales, completing only four sales between its launch in April 2018 and November of the same year.  

To some, Hines' action may not come in as a surprise, because concerns surrounding ConsenSys' equity disbursements have been haunting ConsenSys. Per a CoinDesk report, the firm was said to mislead some employees about their share options, which had triggered complaints and dissent among employees of the company.  

About Author

Celia joined The Block as a reporter after earning her BA in the History of Science from the University of Chicago. Having spent years pondering over why 2+2 cannot equal 5, she is interested in the history and philosophy of mathematics, computation, and cryptography. She also had a very brief stint at Crunchbase News.