Crypto Lender Nexo Sues Former Director Over Account Holding $20M in Bitcoins

Crypto lender Nexo has filed a legal lawsuit against its former executive Georgi Shulev for refusing to honor his side of an agreement he signed with the firm before his departure in 2019, Law360 reported Tuesday. 

According to the report, the crypto lender signed a petition at the High Court in London, demanding the release of a blocked BitMEX account over its dispute with the former director on the assets contained in the account.

Nexo Claims Ownership of Bitcoin Account

Nexo stated that Shulev failed to stick to the settlement agreement established in July by Andrew Henshaw, a federal judge in London, to return the account opened using the defendant’s email address at BitMEX before leaving the firm. 

Per the report, the disputed account holds up to nine cryptocurrencies, including 880 Bitcoins (BTC) valued at $20.5 million at current market prices. The crypto lender noted that it traded futures contracts with the account and sent around 1451 BTC to it in May 2019. 

Problems started when Shulev left the company and disabled the email address linked to the account, claiming ownership of the assets, noting that the account was opened as an individual account, not corporate. 

On the contrary, Nexo argued that the account belongs to the firm, stating that it was a corporate trading account and “Shulev has wrongfully retained, and continues to retain, the nine assets of Nexo, their rightful owner.”

Breach of Agreement

The account was later blocked by BitMEX’s parent company, HDR Global, after a series of attempts by the ex-director to change the email address linked to the account. 

Following the dispute, HDR Global asked the London High Court to determine who owned the account and requested that both Shulev and Nexo reach out to the firm once the lender had secured the account. 

The court ruled that Shulev should “waive any rights to the company’s corporate trading account and must transfer the crypto-assets” with a $1 million compensation after handing over the account. 

However, Shulev explained that Nexo breached the agreement to transfer the first of five installment payments to him, and because of that, he cannot inform HDR Global that the matter has been settled.