DOGE investors accused Elon Musk of insider trading in a class action lawsuit, also naming Telsa for Dogecoin price manipulation, costing investors billions of dollars.
The Dogecoin plaintiffs, represented by Evan Spencer of Evan Spencer Law, argue that Musk and his company manipulated the Dogecoin market to sell the token at a higher price. Quinn Emanual Urquhart & Sulivan and Tesla’s in-house lawyer are the counsels representing Tesla and its CEO in the securities fraud case.
In a new development, the plaintiffs have filed another motion to disqualify key legal representation for the defendants.
Spencer’s Motion To Disqualify Tesla Lawyers In Dogecoin Lawsuit
The plaintiffs’ lawyer filed a new motion to disqualify Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Tesla’s in-house lawyer Allison Huebert from representing Tesla or its CEO, Elon Musk. In his motion, Spencer argued that Musk and Tesla have conflicting interests since the CEO allegedly acted alone through his Twitter account.
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Spencer asserts that Tesla might have a cause of action against Musk, rendering their conflict irreconcilable even though New York permits lawyers to represent companies and their officers concurrently.
The most intriguing part of the filing stems from the accompanying exhibit. Most of the motion focuses on Spencer’s counter-argument to a June 15 New York Post article which he attached as an exhibit. The article details a June 9 letter from Musk and Tesla defense lawyer Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel to Spencer.
In the letter, Spiro threatened to seek sanctions against Spencer for filing an undeniably false amended complaint. Also, in the letter, the Tesla defense counsel said Spencer was aware that the allegation against Musk and Tesla lacked factual basis before filing the complaint.
Spiro claimed neither Tesla nor Musk owned the crypto wallets cited in Spencer’s complaints. He further asserted that the complaint was “fatally flawed” because neither Tesla nor Musk has ever sold Dogecoin.
“No competent attorney could form a reasonable belief that the third amended complaint is well-grounded in fact,” Spiro told Spencer in the letter.
Tesla Defense Counsel Slammed For Leaking A June 9 Letter To New York Post
Meanwhile, Spencer accused Spiro of leaking his June 9 letter to the New York Post in his new disqualification motion. He noted that Spiro’s conduct violated ethics rules and demonstrated that Quinn Emanuel’s continued defense of the case “poses a serious risk of trial taint.”
The motion tagged the June 9 letter as a “brazenly false and bizarre” attack on Spencer’s integrity, asking the court to sanction Quinn Emmanuel for interfering with Spencer’s client relationships by leaking the letter. In a motion to dismiss a previous version of the lawsuit, Tesla’s defense counsel argued that the entire case was “a fanciful work of fiction that fails to state any actionable claim.”
The defense lawyers maintained that Musk’s “harmless and often silly tweets” about Dogecoin are nothing more than “quintessential puffery.”Meanwhile, Tesla, Musk, and Quinn Emmanuel have yet to respond to Spencer’s defiance.