Athena sues ex-CEO for trying to take over Chivo ATM business in El Salvador

The company that provides Chivo ATMs in El Salvador, Athena Bitcoin Global, has filed a lawsuit in Illinois (USA) against a former CEO it appointed as CTO for “sabotaging Athena’s business relationship with El Salvador in order to get the company out of the way. And secure the contract themselves”, Pursuant to Law360, the legal news service.

According to this site, in September last year, Athena agreed to buy the software company ROI Developers Inc. based in Texas, operating under the name Accruvia, and has offered its president and president, Sean Overton, a senior executive position. After the purchase, Overton became the chief technology officer of Athens.

At the time, Athens had installed 200 Chivo-branded ATMs that would allow Salvadorans to transact Bitcoin, but their contract was to install 1,500 ATMs across the country. That sent the company’s shares up nearly 1,200% that month, from $0.13 to $1.90.

Banco del Estado accepts 200 Chivo ATMs as collateral for a $1.5 million loan

According to the Law360 report, Athena has also been helping to deploy and implement point-of-sale devices that would allow businesses in the country to accept cryptocurrency in exchange for their goods and services, according to the complaint.

However, Athena alleges that Overton, ROI Developers and Accruvia violated confidentiality agreements by exposing software flaws at ATMs in Athens. “Overton and Acrovia told El Salvador that Athens had problems with software that it could help solve, if the state agreed to hire them.”

The lawsuit explained that this “created a bad reflection that was the reason why El Salvador had to reduce its investment in the relationship with Athens, which caused economic damage” to the company. According to Law360, Athena claims to have suffered at least $3 million in damages by relying on allegedly false statements.

According to Athens Stocks, Protos.com, the markets quickly rejected the shares after President Najib Bukele and El Salvador reduced their requests to Athens.

AlphaPoint plans to install 1,500 Bitcoin ATMs in El Salvador

Law360 reports that Overton also sent an email to another Athens executive asking him to hire the best available staff because he refused to work with “Indians”.

“This caused additional damage due to the additional expenses that Athens had to incur to hire other employees simply for the racist behavior of the accused and to ensure that Athens complied with all laws, which it did,” Athena said.

The defendants also hired incompetent and expensive employees to sabotage the company’s business, and Athena had to fire them, she said.

Athena is suing Overton for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and fraudulent inducement to enter into a contract, saying Overton, ROI and Accruvia entered into agreements with Athena only to “obtain an internal foothold in information” and use it to steal significant information. Client.

In El Salvador, Athena Holdings received a $1.5 million loan from Banco Hipotecario and secured 200 ATMs installed in the country.

This order is also known as another company, AlphaPoint, will install 1,500 ATMs for Bitcoin transactions without official information from the Salvadoran government yet.