The founding partner of crypto boutique litigation company, Roche Freedman LLP, attorney Kyle Roche had recently withdrawn from several class-action lawsuits that the company had initiated.
The withdrawal comes after a video of the lawyer began to circulate, which involved discussions of his association with crypto companies.
After the initial filing, Tether requested that the class-action lawsuit filed against the stablecoin issuer have Roche Freedman’s name removed.
The lawsuit
Tether, the renowned stablecoin issuer, had found itself a target of a class-action lawsuit alleging that it manipulated the crypto market.
The Roche Freedman website states that the USDT, or Tether, stablecoin had been marketed as one that was backed by the US dollar in a ratio of 1:1, which does not exist.
Further allegations include the use of the debased USDT for purchasing crypto commodities in order to inflate the prices artificially.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP’s Elliot Greenfield recently wrote a letter to the judge presiding over the lawsuit in question.
The letter talked about the founder of Roche Freedman, Kyle Roche, who has found himself in the midst of controversy recently.
The controversy
Crypto Leaks published a series of videos, which show the attorney having discussions about the relationship with a number of crypto firms.
Kyle Roche addressed the videos and asserted that they comprise of a number of false statements and also claimed that the videos were highly edited and illegally obtained.
He further said that they had not been presented in their actual context. He also filed on August 31st to have himself removed from several class-action lawsuits, along with the one filed against Tether.
The legal team of the stablecoin issuer sent the letter to Judge Failla for requesting the removal of the litigation firm from the case as well.
Tether’s legal team
According to Greenfield, the involvement of Roche as given rise to serious concerns related to the motivations behind the class-action lawsuit.
The attorney also added that there was also a possibility of misuse of highly confidential and sensitive information that the defendants have provided.
The lawyer argued that considering the association of Roche with the Crypto Leaks videos, it is grounds enough to completely remove the litigation company’s name from the lawsuit.
The attorney from Debevoise & Plimpton noted that Mr. Roche’s individual withdrawal does not do much to address the problem.
This is because there can still be potential misuse of class action lawsuits and discovery generally. The lawyer stated that even if he is not part of the council, the discovery materials would still be accessible to him.
In addition, he would also be able to influence the conduct of the other attorneys working at his company and any potential recovery via the lawsuit would also benefit him.
Therefore, the letter to the presiding judge called for the removal of Roche Freedman entirely from the lawsuit in order to ensure things remain fair and there is no misuse of any kind.