TL;DR
- A U.S. federal judge dismissed a $100 million class action lawsuit against Atomic Wallet due to lack of jurisdiction and insufficient evidence.
- Judge Philip Brimmer determined that the digital nature of Atomic Wallet’s products made it unlikely that the company had intentionally targeted the Colorado market.
- The plaintiffs were granted an additional 21 days to justify claims against Ilia Brusov, a shareholder and founder of Evercode Infinite.
A U.S. federal judge has dismissed a $100 million class action lawsuit against Atomic Wallet, the Estonian crypto firm, due to lack of jurisdiction. The lawsuit was filed in 2023 by a group of users following a hack that compromised $100 million of the company’s assets in June of the same year.
The case was dismissed by federal Judge Philip Brimmer, who determined that there was insufficient evidence to establish that Atomic Wallet had a deliberate focus on the Colorado market, where the lawsuits were filed. The plaintiffs had argued that the availability of the Atomic Wallet app in Colorado and advertising on platforms like X were sufficient to justify jurisdiction in that state.
However, Judge Brimmer highlighted that, since Atomic Wallet’s products are digital, it could not be concluded that the company had intentionally directed its efforts towards Colorado. In his ruling, Brimmer stated that the digital nature of the products made it even less likely that the firm had deliberately exploited the Colorado market.
A Victory for Atomic Wallet
Additionally, it was determined that there was no adequate evidence of contact between the company and the state, leading to the decision not to exercise jurisdiction over Atomic Wallet, its CEO Konstantin Gladyshev, shareholder Pavel Sokolov, and Evercode Infinite, the software development company behind the wallet’s technology.
Despite the dismissal of the case against most of the defendants, the judge granted the plaintiffs an additional 21 days to justify claims against Ilia Brusov, a shareholder and founder of Evercode Infinite. This extension could affect the continuation of specific legal actions against Brusov.
The ruling represents a victory for Atomic Wallet amid the legal challenges stemming from the massive hack. The decision provides temporary relief to the company as it continues to face the repercussions of the security breach.
