Blockchain loan company Karma Group has filed legal action through a court in Hong Kong and a financial regulator against the cryptocurrency exchange, HitBTC.
The action was filed in relation to a payment Karma made to HitBTC for its support and services. Karma paid over 527.01 ETH, or over $307,000 for service which has, since this report, not been refunded to Karma.
The legal action directly specifies the agreed services which HitBTC was paid to:
- Providing blockchain implementation for Karma Group
- Provide and advertise the listing of two trading pairs (against BTC and ETH), including press campaigning for it via Retweet
- Provide an additional trading pair (USDT)
Up to the issuing of this letter, HitBTC had yet to provide any of the above-mentioned services, and has yet to refund the amount provided to them by Karma. The letter has specified a final deadline of return for the ETH payment for the 29th May.
Overall, this means that it’s been over 60 days since the payment was first sent to HitBTC by Tim Novak, and nearly 40 days since a HitBTC representative went on record stating that the company would complete the obligations specified within the agreement.
The lack of communication, both in providing updates at the request of Karma and in announcing its progress on social media has left Karma with no alternative other than to pursue legal action.
According to Karma’s CEO, George Goognin, the aim of the action is to highlight the need for transparency in the cryptocurrency world.
“The Karma team stands for transparency and a high level of business ethics. The fathers of the crypto economy were standing for freedom, but 100% freedom always comes with 100% responsibility. We’re sure that the basic principles violation, especially by the big market players, is unacceptable. That’s why we decided to create this international law case.”
