A federal court in the United States has upheld investor claims that HelbizCoin acted fraudulently and violated securities laws.
A federal court in the United States has permitted the continuation of a nearly three-year-old class action lawsuit against the creators of HelbizCoin.
The class action lawsuit was initially launched in 2020 against Helbiz, Helbiz CEO Salvatore Palella, and its partners, with an amended complaint being filed in March 2022.
The complaint states that in 2018, the Italian electric scooter-sharing company HelBiz raised $38.6 million in an ICO and issued an ERC-20 token with one of Ethereum’s founders, Anthony Di Iorio.
Approximately 20,000 investors alleged that HelbizCoin was a fraudulent pump-and-dump scheme in which the company made false statements and promises to induce people to purchase the coins. They claimed that Helbiz retained the majority of the ICO funds for itself.
On September 1, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York partially ruled in favor of investors who filed the class-action lawsuit, granting in part and denying the motions to dismiss.
The court dismissed all claims against certain defendants, including Paysafe, Skrill, Decentral, and Alphabit, because Paysafe and Alphabit lacked personal jurisdiction.
In addition, the court dismissed specific claims against the remaining defendants for failure to articulate a claim, including breach of contract, tortious interference, and some due to co-site claims.
However, Judge Louis Stanton also ruled that some plaintiffs adequately stated claims for fraud, price manipulation, violations of securities laws, commodities laws, the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, and unjust enrichment. the investor’s lawyer also stated that:
“Among other matters, the case found that the ERC-20 token is a security under federal law,”
Reuters reports that a lower court judge dismissed the investors’ lawsuit in January 2021, citing a 2010 Supreme Court precedent limiting federal securities statutes’ extraterritorial reach.
However, the case was revived in October 2021 when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the lower court judge made an error in its ruling, and a revised complaint was filed in March 2022.
Kanovitz noted in an email that the complaint included several visualizations that use the Ethereum blockchain to “prove spoof trading in the ICO.” He added that it also had evidence of multiple “genesis wallets” provided to the initial investors in Ethereum, such as Mr. Di Iorio.
“It is a compelling story that shows how blockchain transparency can be used to flush out criminals.”
Kanovitz elaborated, stating, “encountering multiple genesis wallets is like a fingerprint that points to one of only a few people in the world. Moreover, these genesis wallets also engaged in similar behavior in ICOs that Di Iorio publicly backed, such as EOS.”
The complaint alleged that Di Iorio, a consultant for Helbiz, had published false and misleading statements about the HelbizCoin ICO in Bitcoin Magazine but did not provide evidence that he had done so.
The ruling stated, ““This is a speculative conclusion at best and thus fails to adequately allege that Di Iorio made false or misleading statements,”
