Arbitration proceedings have begun in London in the investors’ lawsuit against companies tied to the blockchain platform Telegram Open Network (TON). told Oleg Zhelezko, managing partner of Da Vinci Capital, in an interview with RBC.
He says the case involves almost 50 investors from the Disruptive Era Fund, managed by Da Vinci Capital. In total, they invested $72.1 million in Telegram.
Da Vinci Capital is acting as coordinator in the proceedings against Telegram.
Oleg Zhelezko said that the proposal to return funds invested in TON cryptocurrency was made “not entirely correct”: it arrived roughly 24 hours before the deadline.
“As a result, many participants did not have a real opportunity to analyse the documents and obtain an adequate return on their investments,” he noted.
Zhelezko cited “difficult communications moments,” which made it “very hard for investors to decide whether to take their money back or convert it into a loan”.
According to Zhelezko, concerns about the TON creators exist among European and American investors, who are also likely to transfer their rights to one legal track or another.
The Da Vinci Capital partner did not rule out that their lawsuit against Telegram would not be the only one:
“Independent firms are now operating to aggregate the interests of different investors.”
Experts assessed the chances of success of the Telegram Open Network investors’ lawsuit
As previously noted, during two rounds of a closed ICO in February and March 2018, TON attracted $1.7 billion from 175 investors in the US and abroad. Among them were entities associated with billionaire Roman Abramovich and Mikhail Abyzov.
In April 2020, Pavel Durov notified TON investors that the launch would not occur due to a clash with [simple_tooltip content=’The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’]SEC[/simple_tooltip] and a ban on distributing Gram tokens. He promised non-American investors a return of 110% of their initial sums after one year, while those who do not agree to such a option would receive 72% immediately.
Under the terms of the settlement with the SEC, Telegram was obliged to pay the agency a fine of $18.5 million and to return $1.22 billion to the investors.
In April 2021, media reported that some TON investors already received funds, while another portion was notified of the start of payments.
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