Halfway between amateur trickery and the shaky script of the last episode of an American series in need of an audience and lacking in inspiration, yesterday we were talking about the “AVAX affair”. A bonus episode that has terrified the ratings and shaken the crypto industry and its community in recent hours. In “damage control” mode, the lawyer Kyle Rochehero in spite of himself of this not very glorious opus took the floor to present his version of the story.
Kyle Roche, the pebble in Ava Labs’ shoe
Yesterday’s article is normally quite fresh in everyone’s mind. However, in “previously in the saga of the summer” mode, we will summarize the case roughly as follows:
Kyle Roche is a lawyer who looks like he’s straight out of a Netflix court series.
Nothing is missing from the panoply: young, self-confident, slicked back hair and teeth that we guess are long and ready to scratch the floor (of the courts). The set is packaged in the $8,000 suit that we wouldn’t dare call “union” given the context. Kyle is proficient in squad action against financial giants of all persuasions, but it is particularly specialized in the crypto industry.
He is currently working on 15 different folders with great blows of class actions and makes no secret of his skills on the subject and his ability to spare no expense to his clients in order to bring them total satisfaction, even if these means are unethical or unfair.
Kyle stresses, however, that his practices are perfectly regulatory, and permitted by an American judicial system, which sometimes pays little attention to procedural means and their potential abuses.
In short, Kyle Roche is a American business lawyer efficient and seems perfectly fine with the fact that his activities sometimes have more to do with mercenary or economic warfare than any “Justice”, a subject that he leaves to more qualified than him on the issue.
Among his many clients, Kyle Roche counts the company Ava Labscommercial subsidiary behind the crypto project Avalanche (AVAX, 17ᵉ market capitalization, $5.5 billion capitalization).
According to his statements, they have been working for Ava Labs since 2019, or the origins of the project. He would also share common premises in Miami with part of the executive team. Finally, he would himself hold substantial shares in the project, both in the form of company shares and AVAX tokens.
And if we are aware of these multiple rather sensitive details, it’s because Kyle Roche fell into a trap.
The young lawyer seems, in fact, to have been manipulated, given confidence and encouraged to pour out many details and supposed actions ofAva Labsmore particularly under the prism of the services that he would have, still according to him, rendered to the company within the framework of their partnership.
Delivering a rolling fire of confidences and business secrets to an unidentified interlocutor, Kyle Roche was filmed – at least twice – and these are the videos that have been revealed in recent days.
Refer to the previous article for the details, but in bulk, Ava Labs would have according to his declarations called on his services, not at the same time to provide advice and defense, but also to orchestrate destabilization campaigns targeting certain competitors of the project, such as Solana for example.
Multiple procedures for “drown” the opposing parties, low blows, recovery of sensitive competitive information (through US law, allowing access for a lawyer to many documents and business information)…. And, this without even counting “personal services” with the aim of specifically harming certain personalities in the crypto sphere.
The unpacking has something surreal when we remember that its author is a renowned and recognized professional lawyer. A legal specialist supposedly broken both in professional secrecy and in the face of indiscreet questions. But it’s a fact, for long minutes the interested party piles up the supposed revelations, figures, data and supporting anecdotes, exposing without filter (and often without hiding a certain self-satisfaction) to his interlocutor the most sensitive, even disturbing.
The Ava Labs team was quick to react yesterday, through the voice of its legal counsel and its CEO. Emin Gun Sirer. The latter evoking an “absurd conspiracy theory” and ensuring that the company operated in accordance with high ethical and regulatory standards.
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Ava Labs case: speaking to the defense
In a short text soberly titled “My answer”, Kyle Roche returns to the exposure of the stolen videos and delivers his version of the story.
He begins by confirming what everyone suspected, namely that the recordings were taken without his knowledge. Much more interesting, he points to his interlocutor, invisible on the screen and with a transformed voice.
” [la vidéo] contains numerous unsourced false claims and heavily edited illegally obtained video clips that are not presented with accurate context. These videos were recorded without my consent during private meetings with Christen Ager-Hanssen, who I now know works for Dominic Williams, the creator of ICP Token, and the defendant in a highly publicized securities fraud litigation that my firm brought against him. »
Christen Ager-Hanssen is a sulphurous character, often describing himself as a “street brawler” when it comes to business. We will especially remember for the moment that the businessman of Norwegian origin would have acted on behalf of Dominic Williamfounder and CEO of the controversial project Internet-Protocol (ICP).
Without real surprise, the lawyer indicates that his remarks were first decontextualized, and moreover were, according to him, the subject of a partisan montage.
“Ava Labs has had no influence, control or insight into the class action cases on the side of our firm’s plaintiffs and we have never brought any class action on their behalf or at their request. Statements to the contrary in the video are false and were obtained by deceptive means, including a deliberate scheme to intoxicate and then exploit me using leading questions. Statements are heavily edited and cut out of context”
He assumes in passing the practices of his firm, pointing out that Ava Labs did not agree with him on this point (and on the proposed strategies).
“Our firm’s practice as a plaintiff has remained a source of contention in our relationship with Ava Labs, and they have criticized our pursuit of numerous such cases. In all my dealings with Emin Gün Sirer and the rest of the Ava Labs team, they have always acted with the utmost integrity. They never asked me to do anything underhanded, illegal, or of questionable ethics, and I never would. »
If this text is intended to be a quick and hoped-for effective response to the raging fire, there is no doubt that it will probably not satisfy everyone, insofar as many questioning points remain unanswered.
For his part, the boss of Ava Labs made his position known in an article. In this text, he qualifies the entire file ” absurd ” and “allegations”attributing Kyle Roche’s statements to that “of a lawyer wishing to impress a potential business partner”.
Flex, lies and videos…begun in the hushed meeting rooms of discreet business firms, this painful crypto-judicial saga could end up inevitably ending in the harsh light of a court of law.
Update : Christen Ager-Hanssen has just delivered his version of the facts in an interview on Youtube (presented as a tour of the places where he received Kyle Roche)
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