Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is being sued by a former trading desk manager who says the exchange owes him over $900,000.

In the business world, it is fairly common for someone to feel that they’re not being fairly compensated for what they do. Sometimes this may be due to unspoken expectations, and then there are times when one party may not have lived up to their end of an agreement. It is this latter scenario that is at the heart of a lawsuit filed against Kraken, the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange. A former trading desk manager alleges the exchange owes him over $900,000, and he has filed suit in New York to get it.

Release the …. Lawsuit!

Jonathan Silverman is the plaintiff, and he was the manager of Kraken’s trading desk in New York. When he was hired back in April 2017, he was supposedly offered a base salary of $150,000.

However, Silverman maintains that the founder of Kraken, Jesse Powell, offered him additional pay in the form of a 10 percent commission on the sales of the trading desk. It should be noted that this agreement was made orally.

The New York trading desk supposedly generated $19 million in profits during a three-month period in 2017, which should have netted Silverman a hefty commission based upon the oral agreement. However, Silverman says he never received the commission nor promised stock options.

In response to the lawsuit, Christina Vee, a spokesperson for Kraken, says that Jonathan Silverman “is both lying and in breach of his confidentiality agreement.”

Is Kraken Operating in New York?

An interesting facet of the lawsuit is the relationship between Kraken and the state of New York. Jesse Powell says the exchange does not have to adhere to New York’s rules as the exchange does not operate in the state and has not for several years. He says the exchange left the state in 2015, and a blog post cites the state’s BitLicense regulations as the reason for the departure.

In the blog post from 2015, the exchange said:

Regrettably, the abominable BitLicense has awakened. It is a creature so foul, so cruel that not even Kraken possesses the courage or strength to face its nasty, big, pointy teeth. It’s at least a 40-man, bro.

(Points for the mmo raid reference at the end!)

Silverman and his lawyers say that such is not the case and that Kraken has done extensive dealings in New York. The filing states:

[Kraken is] misrepresenting to the public and government regulators that it was not operating in New York; when in reality, Kraken’s OTC practice, and OTC trading (including logging into the Kraken exchange and negotiating wire transfers) occurred almost exclusively in New York.

Silverman says that, after he left the company, Kraken agreed to pay him $907,631. They never did, which has led to the lawsuit.

This is not the only lawsuit that Kraken is facing in New York from a disgruntled ex-employee. Robert Adler is suing the exchange for $9,999,000 for breach of contract.

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