In a new twist to the controversial QuadrigaCX fiasco, the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange’s former regulatory attorney Christine Duhaime says that the late CEO Gerald Cotten’s decision to rid the firm of “law and order folks” is what led to its dramatic decline, Bloomberg, March 27, 2019.
Late CEO’s Desires
The story surrounding the fallen Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX continues to surprise people with its labyrinthine twists and turns.
The exchange owes close to $194 million to about 115,000 customers after its CEO Gerald Cotten, who was the only person having access to cold storage wallets comprising of $250 million worth of digital currencies, away in December 2018 in India.
Now, attorney Duhaime, who played an important role in getting Vancouver-based QuadrigaCX regulatory approvals to run as an exchange, has gone on record to state that the platform’s downfall began one day in 2016 when Cotten decided he no longer desired to run it as a listed company.
In a March 26, 2019, for online crypto publication Coindesk, Duhaime wrote:
“On that day, he terminated the professionals that were, in his mind, ‘law and order’ folks — the accountant, the auditor and me, the regulatory attorney,”
Adding,
“From that moment onwards, Mr. Cotten solely took over QuadrigaCX and operated the exchange as if it had no investors, no shareholders, no regulatory agencies and no law that applied to it – no corporate law, no securities law, no anti-money-laundering law and no contract law.”
Duhaime’s Law Firm Owed $75,000
Per the Bloomberg report, Duhaime was hired in 2016 to help the exchange’s securities lawyer draft a statutory prospectus. After six months, her firm was let go by Cotten.
Duhaime states that recently her law firm faced attempted extortion when a person demanded that they provide privileged and confidential details pertaining to QuadrigaCX or face defamation on social media. The person also threatened to file a false criminal report against the law firm to law enforcement agencies.
She added that as a result of such threats, people who actually have relevant information and papers that could help speed up the QuadrigaCX investigation are now hesitant to come forward.
Notably, Duhaime’s law firm is owed close to $75,000 by QuadrigaCX.
As by BTCManager on March 22, 2019, QuadrigaCX’s legal representative have formed a creditors committee to aid them in representing the interests of the 115,000 customers who were adversely impacted with the unfortunate death of Cotten.
Published at Fri, 29 Mar 2019 18:00:30 +0000
