Tether and iFinex ask to dismiss the lawsuit for market manipulation

Tether and iFinex’s lawyers have filed a motion with the Southern District Court of New York asking for the dismissal of the case against them alleging deceptive, anti-competitive and market manipulative behaviour. 

The 50-page document states that the defendants request that the Court dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint with prejudice. 

First, they state that the allegations are false, and that no crime has been committed. They also state that the plaintiffs have not been able to prove the dependence or causation of the actions they accuse the defendants of, nor the damages or alleged causes that would have led to the losses.

In fact, the plaintiffs accuse the defendants of causing them to lose money by manipulating the crypto market in a way that artificially increases prices. 

This would have resulted in a surge in the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies at the end of 2017.

The accusers are five crypto traders who claim to have bought cryptocurrencies at the end of 2017 at prices inflated by the alleged price manipulation of Tether and Bitfinex, both belonging to the iFinex group, and for this, they filed a complaint in 2018. 

Specifically, the accusation is that they created USDT from scratch, and used it to buy cryptocurrency on the market in order to artificially raise its prices. 

According to Tether and iFinex’s lawyers, this would not be true and, above all, the accusers would not have been able to prove their accusations, which are therefore defined as “unfounded”. 

In light of this, they request that the Court suspend the trial and dismiss the charges for good. 

In fact, as far as is known to date, there would appear to be no evidence to show that the actions of the accused have actually been carried out. 

However, it should be nted that Tether itself states that only 75% of the outstanding USDT is covered by funds held in US dollars (USD) in bank deposits, while the remaining 25% would be covered by other assets of equal value. 

So far, the Court has not yet ruled explicitly in favour of the accusers or defendants, but in the absence of evidence, it seems unlikely that it can rule against the defendants unless the accusers or investigators can prove that the actions of which they are accused are true.