Class action defendant wants case thrown out over Roche Freedman leaks

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Another of the former Roche Freedman’s many legal opponents has reacted to August’s bombshell leaks, this time filing a motion demanding that the case be thrown out in its entirety over concerns that the firm is using discovery for ‘inappropriate purposes.’

The motion is filed by Nexo, a digital asset lender being sued over its delisting of XRP, the beleaguered digital asset of Ripple exchange. The suit was brought as a class action by Nexo customer Junhan Jeong, with Roche Freedman serving as lead counsel.

Nexo now argues that the August leaks—which showed Roche Freedman co-founder Kyle Roche bragging about, among other things suing competitors of one of the firm’s clients (Ava Labs) in order to use the discovery process to gain insight into the inner workings of ‘crypto’ companies—are one of a number of reasons the case should be thrown out entirely.

“Nexo should not be forced into extensive, invasive, and expensive class action discovery when Jeong has no right to proceed in a class action lawsuit and when its counsel appears to use discovery for inappropriate purposes,” reads the motion.

“[They] have a strong pecuniary interest in damaging Nexo to benefit Ava Labs, in tailoring document requests to obtain documents relevant to Nexo’s inner-workings, and developing the case as a tool to further the interests of Ava Labs, even if this may not align with advancing class interests.”

Since the August leaks, Roche Freedman has scrambled to stay ahead of an ever-growing cloud of fallout which threatens to contaminate the firm’s many current and former lawsuits against companies and individuals in the ‘crypto’ space. The firm initially took Roche off its class action practice, but this soon proved insufficient as the firm was removed from a class action lawsuit against Tether last week by Judge Failla in New York. With similar motions being filed by opponents in the Roche Freedman’s other cases, Kyle Roche was fired last week, and the firm was forced to rebrand to Freedman Normand Friedland.

Predictably, however, even those extreme measures seem unlikely to allay the fears of anyone locked in a legal fight with the firm. It was Kyle Roche who happened to be filmed saying the words, but court documents show that all of Roche Freedman’s partners have a financial stake in Ava Labs. Even with Roche gone, questions linger over whether his admissions implicate the entire firm. Nexo certainly thinks so:

“As Judge Failla recognized, the problem was not contained to Roche; the entire Roche Freedman firm is tainted by the conduct…In fact, the six founding partners of Roche Freedman were all recipients of Ava Labs tokens and would share Roche’s same conflicted financial motivations.”

Nexo has requested that the court hear its motion in February.

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