Matter Labs, the company behind Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution ZKsync (ZK), is facing a lawsuit filed by defunct digital asset banking platform BANKEX, which accuses the firm of stealing proprietary technology in its early development stages.
BANKEX alleges that two former employees, Alexandr Vlasov and Petr Korolev, misappropriated company assets to form Matter Labs, according to a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court on March 19. The lawsuit alleges that the two developers secretly transferred and built upon BANKEX’s blockchain technology and founded Matter Labs, a rival entity that has since raised more than $450 million in venture funding and established a prominent position in the blockchain space.
The lawsuit names BANKEX CEO Igor Khmel and the BANKEX Foundation as plaintiffs. The lawsuit states that in 2017, BANKEX was approached by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to develop operational software for Plasma, an innovative solution aimed at reducing transaction costs on Ethereum. Vlasov and Korolev, both BANKEX employees at the time, were assigned to work on the project.
However, the complaint alleges that the duo secretly diverted company resources to develop Matter Labs and maintained and used BANKEX’s codebase and infrastructure. Vlasov currently serves as head of R&D at Matter Labs, while Korolev is the founder of blockchain security firm OXORIO.
In addition to Vlasov and Korolev, the lawsuit also names Matter Labs co-founder Alex Gluchowski, venture capital firm Dragonfly and investor Chris Burniske of Placeholder Capital, alleging that they were either complicit in or aware of the alleged intellectual property theft.
In response, a Matter Labs spokesperson said: “We believe these allegations are completely without merit. The gist of the complaint is that Matter Labs built ZKsync on top of code originally developed at BANKEX. This claim is absolutely false. ZKsync is original technology that is not based on or derived from any code developed by BANKEX. We stand by the integrity of our work and look forward to addressing these baseless allegations in court once they are served on us.”
*This is not investment advice.
