Judge Hands Win to Uniswap in Class Action Over Scams
Summary
Uniswap Labs and its founder, Hayden Adams, have secured a victory in a four-year legal battle, with a Manhattan federal judge dismissing a class action lawsuit alleging liability for scam cryptocurrencies traded on the platform. Judge Katherine Polk Failla determined that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate Uniswap “had knowledge of the fraud and substantially assisted in its commission,” emphasizing that providing a platform for potential fraud is not equivalent to actively assisting it. The lawsuit, initially filed in April 2022 and amended in May 2023 to focus on state-level consumer protection violations related to “rug pulls and pump and dump schemes,” was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. Adams celebrated the ruling on X, stating it establishes a precedent that open-source developers are not liable for the misuse of their code by scammers. The judge likened Uniswap’s position to that of a bank or messaging service, clarifying that simply providing a platform does not constitute substantial assistance to fraudulent activities.
(Source:Cointelegraph)