- Roche Cyrulnik Freedman has sued several crypto projects and is representing others in the growing industry.
- On Saturday, the firm sued co-founder Jason Cyrulnik, saying he tried to extort tokens from the firm after being ejected.
- The suit said Cyrulnik was a bully and said associates wouldn’t work with him.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
Roche Cyrulnik Freedman, a top law firm in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, has sued one of its founding partners, accusing Jason Cyrulnik of trying to seize control of key decisions and bullying other partners.
The firm, which as of Monday morning had rebranded its website as Roche Freedman, said in a lawsuit filed Saturday that Cyrulnik has screamed at his partners for refusing to support his proposed changes to the firm’s compensation model. Associates threatened to quit if they had to work with Cyrulnik and his partners ended up voting to eject him last month, according to the complaint.
“Cyrulnik’s behavior continued to deteriorate to the point where it was not reasonably practicable to carry out the partnership’s business with him as a partner,” the firm said. “Multiple associates told firm partners they would quit if they would continue to be staffed on Cyrulnik’s matters. Partnership meetings could no longer be peacefully conducted, and thus, were halted.”
The lawsuit said Cyrulnik claims his partners simply want a bigger share of an unnamed token that was paid to the firm in lieu of fees by an unnamed start-up client. He hired the well-known litigator Marc Kasowitz to contest his removal, according to the complaint, which was filed by Roche Cyrulnik’s lawyer Eric Rosen and Sean Hecker of the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink.
Roche Freedman’s clients in the digital-assets industry include Ava Labs, a company whose blockchain is meant to process transactions rapidly, and the team behind the Brave Browser, a web browser that rewards users with tokens called BAT. It has also reportedly been involved with plans to create a token backed by money recovered in lawsuits.
The firm is working on several cases against people and businesses who issued tokens that are said to have been illegal, unregistered securities. Many of those cases are in their early stages, but one, involving the Swiss entity Bancor and its token BNT, was dismissed in February. The firm is also co-leading a case that claims Tether, a “stablecoin” meant to be less volatile than other cryptocurrencies, was used to manipulate the price of other digital assets.
The firm is also representing the estate of one of Bitcoin’s alleged co-creators, Dave Kleiman, in a case against Craig Wright, who has said that he and Kleiman were “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous creator. Billions of dollars’ worth of crypto could be at stake in that case, which may go to trial this year.
Cyrulnik joined Roche and Freedman with about 10 other Boies Schiller lawyers in early 2020, and the firm made an early name for itself by giving large bonuses to associates. Cyrulnik has represented numerous energy-industry clients in lawsuits, including Just Energy.
The law firm also works on litigation that has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. Its lawyers are representing Yankees great Alex Rodriguez’s former brother-in-law in several lawsuits against the multimillionaire shortstop over the profits from their real estate ventures.
In an email, Kasowitz defended Cyrulnik and said he’d fight the lawsuit.
“The allegations of the complaint are false and irresponsible,” Kasowitz wrote. “Mr. Cyrulnik will continue to focus on fully protecting the interests of his law firm and clients. The motives and conduct of his partners who launched this attack to take over the firm and appropriate for themselves Mr. Cyrulnik’s interests will be fully and appropriately addressed in the proper forum.”
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