Ex-Kraken Employee Claims to Be Fired After Revealing Illegal Practices

December 19, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

A former Kraken employee sues the cryptocurrency exchange, accusing it of unjustified dismissal after he raised the question of the dubious nature of the company’s business practices.

Nathan Runyon, a former military man with disabilities, intends to seek compensation from the company for harassment at work, discrimination and violation of the terms of the contract. He also claims that there are a number of violations in the work of the exchange itself. The veracity of his statements has not yet been confirmed.

In March 2018, Runyon was hired as a financial analyst at Kraken. In his lawsuit, he explains that the financial director of the exchange, Kaiser Ng, ordered him to prepare information for the audit without worrying about its reliability. In addition, according to him, he found that the options for hosting the options program were secretly changed from what was indicated in the minutes of the meeting of the board of directors, but he was not allowed to correct the mistake.

Runyon claims that Kraken received illegal income from servicing firms on the sanctions list of the Foreign Assets Control Authority. According to the lawsuit, he learned this information from the list of exchange income items provided to him. According to the plaintiff, he tried several times to draw the attention of management to this problem, but all his requests were ignored.

On top of that, the plaintiff reports that Ng once asked him to reconcile the balances on client and operational accounts. In the process, he allegedly discovered that a deficit formed in the company’s accounts, measured in the “millions of dollars”. When he tried to warn Ng about this, fearing hacking or embezzlement, he was immediately forbidden to work with accounts.

Runyon’s other complaints include the exchange’s refusal to pay the rent of a room in his house, which the company allegedly needed to use his home address.

The contract with Runyon Kraken broke off on August 1, 2019. He claims that this was due to the fact that he discovered the fact of deception by his head of the exchange employees regarding their right to purchase shares of the company at a reduced price.

Runyon’s lawyer allegedly claims that his home address is still used as a contact exchange and its financial director.

Kraken said it could not comment on “ pending legal matters.”

Author: Marko Vidrih