Nvidia moves to dismiss $1B digital currency GPU lawsuit

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Graphics processing card manufacturer Nvidia has filed a motion with the court to dismiss an ongoing class action lawsuit against the firm, according to reports.

The manufacturing giant is accused by investors of misrepresenting revenue from 2017 and 2018, running to the tune of over $1 billion.

In May 2017, the firm launched a new GPU aimed at the digital currency block reward mining market, known as ‘Crypto SKU’. However, investors allege the firm then attributed revenues to block reward mining which had actually been driven by demand for its core GPUs from the gaming market, which in their view skews the value of the results.

In its motion to dismiss the class action, Nvidia said that it was impossible for the firm to know with certainty the reason customers were buying their products.

In evidence, Nvidia cites a call from founder and CEO Jensen Huang in August 2018 when he said “whether they buy it for mining or do they buy it for gaming, it’s kind of hard to say,” in reference to sales of the firm’s GeForce GPU.

The firm claims this demonstrates that executives did not lie about the share of their revenue attributed to digital currency block reward mining, as per the allegations in the class action lawsuit.

In the motion, Nvidia goes on to say the amended complaint relies too heavily on research by Jon Peddie Research tied to a previous unsuccessful lawsuit based on a report by Prysm Group.

“The Jon Peddie estimate rests on a host of unidentified and unexplained assumptions and inputs, which the [first amended complaint] does not allege that Prysm investigated at all. This renders Prysm’s analysis even less reliable than before.”

Nvidia claims the complaint mischaracterized the actions of its executives, while falling into similar difficulties as previous lawsuits.

The case continues.