Ex-investment chief, Kavita Gupta is being sued by ConsenSys for allegedly misrepresenting his résumé.
ConsenSys, an Ethereum booster, has sued Kavita Gupta, the former head of its venture capital department, for resume fraud. Gupta filed a case in New York state court two weeks ago alleging that the business owes her money for her role in founding ConsenSys Ventures.
ConsenSys claims that Gupta encouraged the business to recruit her “by pretending to have exceptional qualifications,” which turned out to be false, in a complaint filed in Delaware court on Monday. Credentials from Harvard Business School, MIT, and the World Bank were allegedly forged, according to the lawsuit.
Gupta lacked the ability to lead a venture fund, according to the lawsuit, and her “toxic and destructive demeanor” led the firm to lose workers and business chances.
The developing conflict was originally reported by Business Insider. Gupta told CoinDesk over the phone that she will be filing an enhanced version of her Dec. 31 case, in which she sought at least $30 million in damages.
ConsenSys’ actions were described by Gupta as an attempt to “just truly wipe away my reputation” and “a public mocking.” She contradicted ConsenSys’s claims, claiming that she had been mistreated and that investors in her current fund were ConsenSys Ventures founders. She stated, “I’m questioning everything.”
ConsenSys said in a Jan. 10 lawsuit that when questioned, Gupta was unable to authenticate her credentials and “resorted to lying – even going so far as forging papers – to conceal her crime.”
According to the lawsuit, ConsenSys allowed Gupta to resign rather than fire her and “offered to allow Gupta to keep the compensation paid and accrued during her short tenure,” but Gupta turned down the offer, demanding instead that ConsenSys “pay her millions of dollars” to buy out a “purported equity interest” in the company.
ConsenSys has sought the courts to rule that Gupta “is not entitled to any equity or other remuneration” and to order her to repay the $600,000 in salary and incentives she received from the company. ConsenSys would rather “damage Kavita’s name than compensate her for making them more than $300 million,” according to Gupta’s lawyer, Peter Cane.
“Why would they be bringing these charges for the first time in 2022?” Cane said over the phone.