A US judge ruled that a Colorado court lacked jurisdiction over Estonian-based Atomic Wallet, its CEO, and a sister software company.
A U.S. federal judge has dismissed a class-action lawsuit against Atomic Wallet, ruling that the court did not have jurisdiction over the Estonian crypto company.
In an order issued on Sept. 10, Colorado district court judge Philip Brimmer dismissed the claims against Atomic Wallet, its CEO Konstantin Gladyshev, shareholder Pavel Sokolov, and Evercode Infinite, the software development firm behind Atomic Wallet.
The lawsuit, filed in August 2023 by a group of users who had stored cryptocurrencies with Atomic Wallet, came after a $100 million hack hit the wallet provider two months earlier.
However, Judge Brimmer stated that the connections between Atomic Wallet and Colorado were insufficient to establish the court’s jurisdiction over the company and other defendants.
In November, Atomic Wallet had filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing it had “no U.S. ties” and pointing out that only one of the 21 plaintiffs, Graham Dickinson, resided in Colorado, where the lawsuit was filed.
The plaintiffs had claimed that Atomic Wallet’s advertisements were accessible in Colorado via X (formerly Twitter), that its mobile app could be downloaded in the state, and that Dickinson had “routinely communicated” with Atomic Wallet’s customer support from his home in Colorado.
Brimmer, in his order, explained that “the nature of the products at issue here — software applications — makes it even less likely that Atomic Wallet deliberately exploited the Colorado market” simply by making its software, mnemonic keys, security updates, or tokens available to Dickinson.
Unlike physical goods, Brimmer noted, “Atomic Wallet’s products can reach users without Atomic Wallet knowing where those users are located.”
However, Brimmer granted the plaintiffs an additional 21 days to justify why the lawsuit against Ilia Brusov — a founder of Evercode Infinite and Atomic Wallet shareholder — should not be dismissed. Brusov, like Sokolov, holds a 12.8% stake in Atomic Wallet, while CEO Gladyshev owns 74.4%, according to the court order.
