Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Denies Claims That He Funded A Law Firm To Target Competitors

Brad Garlinghouse says he has had no contact with Kyle Roche of Roche Freedman.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, in a tweet on Monday, has refuted allegations by crypto whistleblower Crypto Leaks that he funded a crypto law firm run by Kyle Roche to target competing crypto firms in lawsuits to divert the attention of regulators.

“Can’t comment on the validity of the slew of allegations in here, but I can unequivocally say that I have never met or spoken to (much less invested in) Kyle Roche,” Garlinghouse writes in his tweet.

Can’t comment on the validity of the slew of allegations in here, but I can unequivocally say that I have never met or spoken to (much less invested in) Kyle Roche. https://t.co/s5Qu91AV2Z pic.twitter.com/DjLZ0eSdbe

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) August 29, 2022

It is worth noting that in a long blog post containing several short videos that appeared to record statements from Kyle Roche, founding partner at Roche Freedman, Crypto Leaks on Friday alleged that Ava Labs, the company behind the Avalanche network, employed Roche to file lawsuits against competing firms to draw away the attention of financial regulators.

Notably, Crypto Leaks accuses Ripple Chief Brad Garlinghouse of lighting the fuse by agreeing to a proposition by Roche, an associate at the time at a firm employed by Ripple, to invest in a new law firm that would carry out the tactics outlined above.

Ava Labs founder Emin Gün Sirer described them as a ridiculous conspiracy theory in response to the allegations. Sirer asserted that the firm would never engage in such unlawful practices.

How could anyone believe something so ridiculous as the conspiracy theory nonsense on Cryptoleaks? We would never engage in the unlawful, unethical and just plain wrong behavior claimed in these self-serving videos and inflammatory article. Our tech & team speak for themselves.

— Emin Gün Sirer? (@el33th4xor) August 28, 2022

Binance’s Changpeng Zhao, in a now-deleted tweet, described the allegations as “wild,” giving room for the possibility of the videos being deep fakes. Notably, Crypto Leaks alleges that Roche Freedman recently sued Binance.US for the Terra ecosystem collapse at the behest of Ava Labs. 

While there is no public record of a partnership between Ava Labs and Roche Freedman, both Ava Labs founders and Ava Labs’ official Twitter account follow the law firm. In addition, Sirer, in a tweet in 2019, lauded Roche Freedman for a lawsuit against Tether and Bitfinex.

The law firm behind this lawsuit is absolutely top notch. They just recently won the largest default judgment in US legal history, for $5B, against you-know-who. They are crypto-savvy like no other firm, and have a track record of explaining difficult concepts in the court room.

— Emin Gün Sirer? (@el33th4xor) October 7, 2019

Notably, Garlinghouse’s Ripple remains locked in a legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims XRP is unregistered security.

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