VC firm lawsuit against Curve Founder Michael Egorov dismissed by California court, due to defendant living in Switzerland at the time of the alleged misdeeds

A California court dismissed a fraud and trade‑secret lawsuit brought by three venture capital firms against Curve Finance founder Michael (Mikhail) Egorov, ruling that California courts lack personal jurisdiction over him because he was based in Switzerland at the time and the parties’ agreements point to Swiss law and forums. The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court in October 2022, alleged that Egorov fraudulently induced the firms to invest in the entity behind Curve and then cancelled their investment while misusing their confidential information and capital. According to court records in ParaFi Digital Opportunities LP v. Egorov, the plaintiffs — ParaFi Digital Opportunities LP, Framework Ventures, L.P., and 1kx LP — claimed they were promised equity in Swiss Stake GmbH and access to CRV tokens in exchange for roughly $1 million and strategic support, but alleged Egorov never delivered those stakes, instead diverting funds into Curve liquidity pools. Egorov had developed Curve while living in Washington state before relocating to Switzerland and forming Swiss Stake GmbH, and the investment contracts contained Swiss governing‑law and forum‑selection clauses. The San Francisco County Superior Court granted Egorov’s motion to quash service for lack of personal jurisdiction in September 2023, finding that he had not purposefully directed business activities at California: the VCs initiated contact, he never travelled to California for the deal, and his limited, indirect interactions did not meet the “minimum contacts” standard. The decision meant the California case was dismissed on procedural grounds without addressing the underlying fraud claims, which have also been the subject of related proceedings in Switzerland. The ruling underscores how jurisdiction and contract design — especially forum‑selection and choice‑of‑law clauses favoring Swiss courts — can shape the legal exposure of DeFi founders whose projects attract global investors. For Curve Finance, one of the major decentralized exchanges focused on stablecoin trading, the dismissal removed a high‑profile U.S. legal front against its founder, although it did not resolve the substantive dispute between Egorov and the investors, which has played out in other venues.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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