EOS Network Foundation, a non-financial organization behind the EOS ecosystem, is consulting with a Canadian law firm to investigate Block.one's past actions and promises to determine "what legal avenues are available to seek redress," the organization wrote in a blog post. The foundation plans to review all "possible legal recourse" including instituting formal litigation proceedings against Block.one.
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Yves La Rose, Founder of the EOS Network Foundation, wrote in a tweet the organization is taking further steps to hold Block.one accountable for its past actions and "broken promises" against EOS. The foundation said it had engaged in negotiations with Block.one to attempt to arrange a "fair and reasonable resolution" with Block.one that would be suitable for the EOS community.
"Unfortunately Block.one decided to walk away from the negotiations and as a result the EOS Block Producers determined it was in the best interest of the community to freeze the vesting of all the EOS tokens that Block.one was to earn in the future," the blog post says.
In May 2020, Block.one faced another class action lawsuit related to the ICO of the EOS token. Crypto Assets Opportunity Fund LLC and Johnny Hong filed a class action lawsuit against Block.one in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The defendants included the company CEO Brendan Blumer, CTO Daniel Larimer, cryptographer and former Block.one partner Ian Grigg and former adviser Brock Pierce. According to the lawsuit documents, the company allegedly provided investors in the EOS token with false and misleading information about it in order to raise a large amount of money through an allegedly unregistered securities sale.
Crypto Assets Opportunity Fund LLC and Hong claimed they bought EOS tokens on a secondary market after the sale, which allowed the company to raise approximately $4 billion. The plaintiffs accused the company of "further violating the securities laws by making materially false and misleading statements about EOS, which artificially inflated the prices for the EOS Securities and damaged unsuspecting investors."
In October 2019, Block.one agreed to pay a $24 million fine to the US financial regulator for allegedly conducting an unregistered securities sale during the EOS ICO, which took place between 2017 and 2018.
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