Law Firm Drops Kyle Roche Following Ava Labs Exposé Fallout

Embattled lawyer Kyle Roche is facing the consequences of secret video recordings in which he said crypto developer Ava Labs paid him to harm competitors via class-action lawsuits.

Bloomberg Law reported on Wednesday that Roche Freedman, the firm he co-founded, cut ties with Roche and he no longer holds an equity stake there. Its website confirms the development as the name “Roche” has been dropped, with the firm now known as “Freedman Normand Friedland.”

On LinkedIn and Twitter, Roche is still listed as a partner at Roche Freedman. The law firm and Roche didn’t return Blockworks’ request for comment by press time.

Roche had moved to withdraw as an attorney from multiple class action cases last month. But legal representatives for the targets also sought removal of the entire law firm in response to the leaked videos.

The alleged agreement required Roche to sue “half the companies in this space” with the objective of obtaining sensitive internal information, while simultaneously deflecting scrutiny away from Ava Labs, the blockchain studio behind Ethereum and Solana competitor Avalanche.

Roche was to do so in exchange for AVAX tokens and equity. Both Ava Labs’ CEO Emin Gün Sirer and Roche have denied the allegations.

On Oct. 13, a US judge ousted Roche Freedman from representing investors in a class action accusing Tether of market manipulation. Reuters noted that the domain name “freedmannormand.com” was registered on the same day as the judge’s order.

Tether said it was pleased with the “well-reasoned decision” to expel the law firm as counsel.

“Roche Freedman’s repeated attempts to trivialize and separate itself from Kyle Roche’s despicable statements describing unethical conduct were not the least bit persuasive,” the company said in a statement.

Kyle Roche not the only lawyer to receive Ava Labs’ tokens

Roche Freedman has initiated more than a dozen class action lawsuits against major crypto players. Roche was entitled to 19% of the law firm’s equity as of Dec. 2019. 

Elliott Greenfield, a legal representative for Tether, previously claimed that others at the law firm were involved with Ava Labs and they may still hold substantial amounts of AVAX tokens.

A memorandum of understanding, revealed as part of a dispute between Roche Freedman and former equity partner Jason Cyrulnik, however shows Roche was the sole attorney responsible for business with Ava Labs.

Still, the document puts the share of an undisclosed amount of AVAX tokens distributed to other lawyers including founding partner Devin “Velvel” Freedman and Cyrulnik, who received 32% and 25% of the haul respectively.

Roche received 28% with the remaining 15% distributed evenly to three other lawyers at the firm, according to the filing.

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