Preliminary injunction granted against Ryan Maasen (BitConnect)
A preliminary injunction has been granted Ryan Maasen in the filed Kentucky BitConnect class-action lawsuit.
For those keeping track this is the Paige lawsuit, filed in Kentucky on January 29th.
A Temporary Restraining Order was previously in effect, now replaced by the preliminary injunction granted on February 26th.
As per the preliminary injunction and based on submitted evidence, the court found
Brian Paige (plaintiff) and the Class has shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their claims for violations of Federal securities law, Kentucky security law, breach of contract and fraudulent inducement.
The entry of a preliminary injunction against Ryan Maasen is in the public interest because the public is interested in preventing massive consumer fraud and other securities violations described in the class action complaint.
Ryan Maasen has been ordered to ‘disclose all bitcoin and other wallet addresses so his money can be monitored‘.
The preliminary injunction is not a blanket asset freeze however, as Maasen is still
authorized to use his finances for:
1) retention of legal counsel and ongoing legal fees and costs
2) payment of reasonable personal expenses for him and
his family and3) trading and investing cryptocurrencies for the purpose of generating personal income.
Here civil suits differ from criminal suits, where defendants are effectively severed from potentially ill-gotten gains.
Still, anything Massen does with his assets will be monitored so hopefully anything dodgy will likely be caught pretty quickly.
With respect to BitConnect (BitConnect International PLC, Bitconnect LTD and Bitconnect Trading LTD), the existing Temporary Restraining Order has been extended.
I’ve also checked through the other seven BitConnect lawsuits today but as of yet there’s nothing of significance to report.