A New York court has decided to depose Bitfinex and Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino as part of a class action lawsuit against the companies and related insiders.
The decision to depose Ardoino was made despite a request by Tether and Bitfinex attorneys to postpone the deposition until early October, as lengthy negotiations to determine the scope of Ardoino's testimony left too little time for preparation.
According to the information published by Decrypt, the lawyers reported that the topics of the testimony were only determined on September 7.
Paolo Ardoino's testimony is scheduled for September 13 and will be the final event in a multi-year legal battle.
The lawsuit, initiated in 2019 by LeboBTC co-founder Jason Leibowitz, alleges that Tether, Bitfinex, Crypto Capital, and related executives caused significant damage to the cryptocurrency market through financial fraud, including bank fraud and money laundering. The class is seeking damages in excess of $1.4 trillion.
Tether, which dominates the stablecoin market with a 64% share and a market capitalization of more than $83 billion, denies all allegations of wrongdoing, including market manipulation.
Among the topics identified for Paolo Ardoino's testimony will be alleged gaps in the defendants' trading records, credit policies, and wallets that held reserves for Tether.
It's worth noting that regulatory challenges to Tether's reserves have come up before. In 2021, Tether and Bitfinex's parent company, iFinex, settled a two-year investigation by the New York State Attorney General into Tether's reserves, which resulted in the company shutting down its operations in New York.
Read also: Coinbase Cloud and Kiln introduced new ETH staking options.
