DCG and Barry Silbert move to dismiss crypto exchange Gemini’s lawsuit

• DCG moves to court to dismiss Gemini’s lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed against the platform in July 2023
• The lawsuit claims that Gemini cannot hold DCG accountable for the misrepresentations made by Genesis

Digital Currency Group [DCG] and its head – Barry Silbert – have finally moved to court to have crypto exchange – Gemini’s lawsuit dismissed. The crypto exchange had taken the matters to court in July 2023.

Its lawsuit alleged DCG misrepresented facts and financial statements. The lawsuit was followed after DCG did not respond to Gemini’s “final offer”. The offer sought for $1.465 billion payment in cash, BTC, and ETH.

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Notably, at the crux of the lawsuit is the Gemini Earn program, which was offered in association with Genesis – a now-bankrupt crypto lender. The crypto exchange had to shut down the service after Genesis paused withdrawals, resulting in the platform’s funds being stuck in the process.

This, in turn, resulted in a back-and-forth clash between Gemini and DCG – the parent company of Genesis.

DCG labels Gemini’s lawsuit as a smear campaign

The latest in this series has DCG claiming that the lawsuit was a “public relations campaign”. The remark points to the social media allegations made by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss – the co-founders of Gemini. The court filing reads,

“Gemini and its principals – Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss – thereafter began an effort to deflect blame by contriving a public, Twitter-based character assassination campaign against Defendants DCG (Genesis’ indirect parent) and Silbert (DCG’s founder) – neither of whom operated or oversaw Gemini Earn program. These tweets were personal, vicious, and false…”

The filing also highlights that the exchange’s lawsuit does not bring in Genesis, which oversaw the Earn program. It highlighted that DCG, Silbert and others accused were not associated with the program, in its inception, promotion, and operations phase.

Additionally, the dismissal filing claims that Gemini agreed that only Genesis would be held accountable for “any claims and liabilities”. And, this would accountability would not extend to any other affiliates or its parents. Additionally, the filing further reads,

“The rest of the Complaint is a hodgepodge of conclusory allegations against non-defendant Genesis, all belied by the fact that Gemini has not filed these spectacular claims in the Genesis bankruptcy […] In either event, these allegations against Genesis have not legal bearing on the claims against the actual Defendants of this case.”

Furthermore, the filing stated that the law does not require the parent company to correct all the misrepresentations made by its subsidiary. Thereby, DCG claims that it does not have the responsibility to “correct the allegedly false misstatements of another” to Gemini. The filing concludes that Gemini’s lawsuit is an attempt to “smear” DCG and Silbert.