Bankrupt “anti-woke” monetary expertise startup GloriFi is taking pictures their shot towards Biglaw. By way of trustee Scott M. Seidel, they filed a criticism in Texas chapter court docket towards Winston & Strawn and considered one of its companions looking for $1.7 billion in damages, alleging malpractice and a breach of fiduciary duties.
GloriFi presupposed to be an “anti-woke” monetary providers agency for patrons who care about that type of factor, and employed Winston to go public at valuation of $1.7 billion. Nevertheless that by no means occurred, and the criticism alleges it was all of the Biglaw agency’s fault.
From the court docket submitting:
However Winston Strawn betrayed its fiduciary duties owed to GloriFi in favor of appeasing and defending Toby Neugebauer (“Neugebauer”) – GloriFi’s rich founder, CEO, and majority shareholder who, with the energetic participation and help of Winston Strawn, repeatedly engaged in harmful self-dealing and strain campaigns towards GloriFi’s pursuits, exterior buyers, and impartial board members.
The criticism continues, “At each flip, Winston Strawn conceded to, and assisted Neugebauer in, his unrelenting need to interact in rampant self-dealing and helped Neugebauer run roughshod over GloriFi and its many different stakeholders.” This allegedly led high-profile buyers — Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Ken Griffin, and Vivek Ramaswamy — to lose confidence within the firm. As such, “Winston Strawn’s wrongdoing was a proximate trigger within the practically $2 billion in misplaced enterprise worth suffered by GloriFi.”
Earlier this 12 months, GloriFi’s trustee filed a strikingly related lawsuit towards one other legislation agency, Chapman and Cutler, for taking positions hostile to GloriFi’s pursuits to please Neugebauer, the agency’s “prized, self-proclaimed billionaire shopper.” I suppose it must be *somebody’s* fault that “anti-woke” monetary providers by no means grew to become a factor.
The agency has a decidedly completely different take, saying,”Winston & Strawn adheres to the best stage of moral and authorized requirements in our work on behalf of our shoppers. Whereas we is not going to touch upon energetic litigation, we stay up for addressing these meritless claims and correcting the document in court docket.”
You possibly can learn the total criticism beneath.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Legislation, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Pondering Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the perfect, so please join together with her. Be at liberty to e-mail her with any suggestions, questions, or feedback and observe her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
