1 year ago
To some, the sanction Tamara Lich invokes visions of semi-trailer trucks blaring their horns and ample crowds of protestors chanting, “Freedom!”
To others, particularly those successful crypto, Lich is simply a suspect successful a class-action lawsuit that represents a defining infinitesimal successful Canada’s crypto history: the archetypal clip backstage citizens successfully petitioned a justice to assistance a Mareva injunction and thereby “freeze” cryptocurrency wallets (as acold arsenic astir legal experts tin tell).
So what’s a Mareva injunction? The sanction “Mareva” comes from the archetypal 1975 English case: Mareva Compania Naviera SA v. International Bulkcarriers SA. In Canada (which has a abstracted and autarkic ineligible strategy from the United Kingdom), if a purported fraud victim, oregon plaintiff, sues an alleged fraudster, oregon defendant, the plaintiff tin petition the tribunal proactively frost the defendant’s assets earlier the trial. This prevents the suspect from disposing of the assets to debar paying the plaintiff successful the lawsuit of an unfavorable civilian judgment.
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Lich became a Mareva defendant, and the look of the alleged Canada “Freedom Convoy,” owed to her relation successful organizing and raising funds for the month-long protests that sought to unit politicians to region Canada’s COVID-19 mandates.
She didn’t enactment alone, but arsenic 1 of the much fashionable figures (if not the astir popular) among the protests’ organizers, she became the look of the protestation movement. Embittered downtown Ottawa residents (where the protests took spot from Jan. 22 to Feb. 23, 2022) named her (and 79 different defendants) successful a class-action suit seeking implicit C$306 cardinal (currently US$228 million) successful “compensation for damages inflicted upon those who live, transportation connected business, oregon enactment successful the [Ottawa] downtown core.”
Court documents amusement Lich was “the organizer of the Freedom Convoy’s fundraiser connected the crowdsourced fundraising platforms GoFundMe and GiveSendGo.” According to The National Post, a Canadian newspaper, the convoy raised implicit $24 million, astir of which was returned to donors aft GoFundMe raised concerns astir the quality of the protests. GiveSendGo followed suit aft being forced to halt the run via a tribunal bid initiated by the Ontario provincial government.
During the last days of the demonstrations, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the archetypal clip successful the country’s history. This gave the national authorities further powers to assistance quell the protests, specified arsenic the quality to frost slope accounts linked to the Freedom Convoy and its supporters.
With accepted backing mechanisms shuttered, Lich and squad turned to crypto. The National Post says protestation organizers raised astir $1.2 cardinal via astatine slightest 3 crypto campaigns.
Then the people enactment plaintiffs came crossed “considerable grounds astir the plans to administer the funds arsenic soon arsenic possible, successful portion to payment the idiosyncratic protestors, but also, to debar immoderate enforcement activity,” tribunal documents state. That’s erstwhile the Mareva injunction was requested and granted.
The injunction seems to person been palmy and, according to The National Post, a operation of crypto and currency totaling implicit $5 cardinal was yet transferred to a third-party escrow relationship and frozen until the decision of the people action, which is inactive ongoing arsenic of this publication.
One cardinal acquisition Lich and her counterparts taught america (albeit inadvertently) is that crypto is nary longer immoderate obscure plus immune to regulatory enforcement. The crypto assemblage was reminded of this erstwhile the U.S. Treasury Department banned American citizens from utilizing decentralized crypto-mixing work Tornado Cash successful August.
The 2nd acquisition is that, astatine slightest successful Canada, not lone tin courts prehend crypto arsenic portion of regulatory enforcement, but besides arsenic portion of backstage litigation.
*All amounts are successful Canadian dollars (CAD)
English (US) 