Roger Ver is Suing a Hong Kong Firm Over ‘Bitcoin.com’ Revenues
Bitcoin investor and early evangelist Roger Ver is suing a Hong Kong website operator for 4.40 million HKD, approx. 567,000 USD, over an alleged breach of agreement from the operator’s part.
Roger Ver, an early bitcoin adopter who is now a fervent proponent and investor in bitcoin and its industry is suing OKEX Fintech, a Hong Kong private company, over alleged lost revenues from Bitcoin.com. Roger Ver is the website’s owner, registrant and administrator.
In documents filed to Hong Kong’s High Court on Wednesday that were obtained by the South China Morning Post , Ver claimed that OKEX Fintech had broken a contractual agreement which saw OKEX manage and operate Bitcoin.com on behalf of Ver through the domain name Okcoin.com
OKEX provides online infrastructure and services for local and international bitcoin trading platforms. In its contract with Ver, OKEX was responsible for redesigning the website, garnering revenue from advertising and enhancing the website’s standing globally with SEO (search engine optimization).
Court documents show that the agreement reached by Ver and OKEX, would see both of them cooperate for a minimum of 5 years wherein revenues would be split between the two parties. Ver claims that OKEX stopped and refused to pay a monthly stream of revenue three months into the 60-month contract.
Now, Ver is seeking lost revenues at US$10,000 (HK$77,557), for the remaining 57 months of the contract which began on December 15, 2014. That amount totals to $570,000 USD.
The Discrepancy
According to Ver, the contract contested by OKEX is a forgery. This forged version, includes a clause that gave the Hong Kong firm leeway to cancel the contract with a six-month notice. This tweaked contract, Ver claims, sees his digital signature copied and pasted into the document.
Ver has sought the Hong Kong High Court to declare the contested contract a forgery, in addition to the revenues sought.
It’s curious that the monetary revenues included in the agreements are that of fiat currencies, given Ver’s association with bitcoin. Since Hong Kong laws and regulation do not extend any oversight over bitcoin, Ver’s contention for lost revenues in HKD will see his case made in court through the usual channels.
As things stand, bitcoin.com remains operational at the time of publication and does not show any indicators or coverage of Roger Ver’s disagreement with OKEX.
Images from Shutterstock and YouTube/Torsten Hoffmann .
