Former Theta Labs executives allege fraud, market manipulation, retaliation in lawsuit

Theta Labs has been sued by two former senior executives, who are acting as whistleblowers, accusing the company, along with its chief executive, of fraud and market manipulation. 

All suits were filed separately in Los Angeles Superior Court by Jerry Kowal and Andrea Berry, who formerly held senior roles at the blockchain firm. 

The defendants are Theta Labs, its parent company, Sliver VR Technologies, and Mitch Liu, the company’s chief executive officer.

The whistleblowers have cited a longstanding pattern of lies, insider self-dealing, and retaliation against employees who reported wrongdoing that was exposed during the four months of the scandal. Representatives of Theta Labs and Liu were not immediately available to comment on the lawsuit.

Theta Labs is a Delaware-based blockchain company that owns and operates the Theta Network, a decentralized platform specifically designed to deliver, compute, and store media. The company also facilitates Theta EdgeCloud, a hybrid cloud product. 

The network is built on two major crypto tokens: THETA, which supports governance and staking, and TFUEL, which provides transactional and network services.

Former executives accuse CEO of pump-and-dump schemes

The lawsuits outline a sustained pattern of insider trading related to Theta’s crypto tokens and NFT marketplace, the plaintiffs claim.

Liu’s personal trading operation, known as Theta Labs, was described as involving fraud, self-dealing, and market manipulation, affecting both investors and employees, according to Kowal’s complaint. Liu executed multiple pump-and-dump schemes that artificially increased token prices until insider sell-offs wiped out value, the filing said.

The lawsuits also accuse Theta of manipulation inside the company’s NFT operations. The cases continue, and no court has decided on the allegations. 

They allege that fraudulent bids were created to inflate prices on NFTs associated with major celebrity projects. Some of these offerings were tied to collaborations with prominent figures, including pop stars, the complaint said.

Berry’s lawsuit stated that, as a staff member at Theta Labs, she was aware of and reported extensive misconduct by top executives and employees. Her complaint alleges that the moves were all part of an effort to inflate the price of the THETA token and to benefit Liu personally. She also says she faced retribution for raising internal issues.

Former executives dispute Theta’s claims of high-profile partnerships

Much of Berry’s complaint centers on Theta’s public statements regarding strategic partnerships with major companies. Some of those partnerships, the lawsuit claims, were misleading and served to promote a false sense of external validation. 

A prime example is one related to Google. Theta said it would form a partnership with Google in May 2020, but Berry claims that it was restricted to a routine cloud services agreement. That scheme, the company said, led to the company paying approximately $7 million for Google Cloud products, making it a customer, rather than a strategic partner.

Under the lawsuit, it is alleged that this misled investors and the broader crypto community about the company’s credibility. Berry’s filing also accuses Theta of engaging in another type of self-dealing, claiming that some of its supposed partners were businesses created and wholly owned by Liu. 

Yet those relationships were marketed as independent collaborations under the CEO’s direct control, the lawsuit said.

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