Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, the San Francisco-based cross-border payment firm, has disclaimed an allegation leveled against him in a recent CryptoLeaks blog post.
It was alleged in the blog post that Garlinghouse made a deal with United States Attorney Kyle Roche, the founder of a law firm named Roche Freedman, to sue competitors in the crypto industry.
Alleged Deal Between Brad Garlinghouse and Kyle Roche
In the blog post titled “Ava Labs (Avalanche) attacks Solana & cons SEC in evil conspiracy with bought law firm, Roche Freedman”, it’s said that before Kyle Roche established Roche Freedman and made a pact with Ava Labs, he was a relatively lowly associate at Boies Schiller Flexner, a law firm representing Ripple in the ongoing XRP lawsuit with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Read Also: Brad Garlinghouse States Reason Why He Thinks Ripple Will Win XRP Lawsuit against the SEC
CryptoLeaks stated that Roche Freedman’s founder proposed to Garlinghouse that he has created a new law firm that would specialize in suing others in the crypto industry with similar tactics that were being used against Ripple.
The blog post reads in part:
“Kyle asked that Brad become his angel investor, and curiously Brad agreed — one might have expected he would want to see less of this kind of litigation across the industry.
“For whatever reasons Brad Garlinghouse invested in Kyle Roche, and supported him on his current path, it certainly didn’t save him from the SEC. Ripple’s current travails might be a bad omen for Emin Gün Sirer.”
Brad Garlinghouse Disclaims the Allegation
Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, who joined several others to discredit the claims, said he can boldly say that he has never met or had any discussion with Kyle Roche, let alone sealing such a ridiculous deal with the U.S. attorney.
Brad Garlinghouse tweeted, “Can’t comment on the validity of the slew of allegations in here, but I can unequivocally say that I have never met or spoken to (much less invested in) Kyle Roche.”
Can’t comment on the validity of the slew of allegations in here, but I can unequivocally say that I have never met or spoken to (much less invested in) Kyle Roche. https://t.co/s5Qu91AV2Z pic.twitter.com/DjLZ0eSdbe
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) August 29, 2022
Read Also: Ripple Prepares For the Worse: Brad Garlinghouse Reveals What Will Happen if SEC Wins XRP Lawsuit
Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer Calls the Allegations Conspiracy Theory Nonsense
CryptoLeaks also claims that the videos of Roche suggest that there was a cordial relationship between Kyle Roche and Emin Gün Sirer, the CEO of Ava Labs, which began in academia. But they made the deal sometime in 2019 when they moved into a co-working space.
According to the publication, the deal was made for Roche to provide legal services in exchange for AVAX tokens and equity.
Roche stated:
“…we did a deal, where I agreed to provide legal services in exchange for a certain percentage of the token supply.”
In another video, he said they “used [litigation services] as a strategic instrument to support Ava Labs.”
He bragged in the video saying, “I sue half the companies in this space, I know where this market is going, I believe [I am] one of the top 10 [crypto experts] in this world… I’ve seen the insides of every single crypto company.”
Read Also: Brad Garlinghouse Speaks On How Ripple Would Respond If the Case Fails To End in Favor of XRP
In a comment on August 28, Emin Gün Sirer, the CEO of Ava Labs, referred to the allegations as conspiracy theory nonsense.
Emin Gün Sirer wrote, “How could anyone believe something so ridiculous as the conspiracy theory nonsense on Cryptoleaks? We would never engage in the unlawful, unethical and just plain wrong behavior claimed in these self-serving videos and inflammatory article. Our tech & team speak for themselves.”
In an already deleted tweet, the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) whose exchange is among those facing a class action lawsuit from Roche Freedman law firm, said:
“This is wild. Not sure if this is true, but assuming the videos are not deep fake… And of course, binance was a target. We are not even a competitor.”
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