Co-founder of crypto mining giant Bitmain, Micree Zhan Ketuan, has initiated court proceedings against the company shareholders in a bid to restores his voting control of the firm.
As BNN Bloomberg reported
on Jan. 3, Zhan asked a Cayman Islands court to discredit Bitmain’s
shareholders' decision to convert the mining company’s Class B shares to
one vote per share, while previously each Class B share had come with
ten votes. As such, the shareholders greatly reduced Zhan’s influence
over the company.
According to a 2018 initial public
offering prospectus, Zhan reportedly owned nearly 4 million Class B
shares — almost twice as much as Wu, who is the only other holder of the
special stock.
Zhan’s removal without his consent
The conflict between Zhan and Bitmain’s shareholders surfaced
in October 2019, when the company’s co-founder, Jihan Wu, announced in
an email that Zhan had left the company. The email read: “Bitmain’s
co-founder, chairman, legal representative and executive director Jihan
Wu has decided to dismiss all roles of Ketuan Zhan, effective
immediately.”
Zhan reacted to the announcement dispiritedly, claiming that he had been removed as a legal representative of the company without his consent. At the time, Zhan wrote:
“I
didn’t realize until then that those scenes in TV shows, where you get
stabbed on your back by those partners you trusted and ‘brothers’ you
fought together with, can really happen in real life. [...] Bitmain is
our child. I will fight for her till the end with legal weapons. I won’t
allow those who want to plot against Bitmain to succeed. If someone
wants a war, we will give them one."
Moreover, Wu further warned Bitmain employees against interacting with Zhan, saying:
"Any
Bitmain staff shall no longer take any direction from Zhan, or
participate in any meeting organized by Zhan. Bitmain may, based on the
situation, consider terminating employment contracts of those who
violate this note."
Layoffs and asset freezing
Recently, Cointelegraph reported
that Bitmain reportedly has plans to reduce its workforce by another
fifty percent as part of a so-called “personnel optimization plan.”
People familiar with the matter assume that the reason for the layoffs
is the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which will cut the number of new coins
awarded to miners by half.
In mid-December, 2019, a Chinese court froze
roughly $676,000 in assets belonging to Bitmain’s wholly-owned
subsidiary, Shenzhen Century Cloud Core. The ruling follows an
application submitted by a manufacturer of electronic components,
Dongguan Yongjiang Electronics, on Sept. 24.
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitmain-co-founder-initiates-legal-fight-to-return-to-control-over-company
