Former Theta executive accuses the company’s CEO of fraud and retaliation

PANews, December 17 — According to Decrypt, two former executives of blockchain company Theta Labs have filed whistleblower lawsuits in California, accusing the company and its CEO Mitch Liu of years of fraud, market manipulation, and retaliatory behavior. Former executives Jerry Kowal and Andrea Berry filed lawsuits in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that Liu used Theta Labs and its parent company Sliver VR Technologies to inflate token prices through misleading partnerships and undisclosed insider token sales, while retaliating against employees who raised concerns.

The attorney representing Jerry Kowal pointed out that Mitch Liu used Theta Labs as a personal trading tool, engaging in fraud, self-dealing, and market manipulation. Liu's carefully orchestrated pump-and-dump schemes repeatedly wiped out the value for investors and employees. The alleged schemes also include "generating fake bids for NFTs," some of which were related to high-profile collaborations with celebrities such as Katy Perry. Berry's complaint also targets Theta's previous statements about Google, accusing the company of publicly misrepresenting a routine cloud services agreement as a strategic partnership. The complaint also highlights two other instances of self-dealing, alleging that "Theta's so-called 'partners' were actually other companies created and wholly owned by Liu."