Yuga Labs resolves litigation with developer responsible for bogus BAYCs
The BAYC creators reached a settlement with developer Thomas Lehman, who was involved in the distribution of a fake set of BAYC NFTs.
The developer of the RR/BAYC copycat collection and the creator of the original Bored Ape Yacht Club collection have settled a lawsuit.
Thomas Lehman, the creator of the websites and smart contract that sold “misleading” BAYC NFTs from digital artist Ryder Ripps, settled a lawsuit against Yuga Labs on February 6.
In January, Lehman was sued by the company that owns the blue-chip collection of mimic monkeys for his involvement with and technical support of the collection.
Lehman allegedly helped Ripps and Jeremy Cahen with developing and promoting the NFTs on social media, as stated in the lawsuit. A “deliberate effort to harm Yuga Labs at the expense of consumers by sowing confusion” was allegedly made between the two lines of work.
According to Law360, as part of the settlement between Yuga Labs and Lehman, the latter is permanently enjoined from using any “confusingly similar” BAYC imagery or running any social media accounts that imply association with the company.
Lehman issued a statement saying, “it was never my intention to harm Yuga Labs’ brand and I reject all disparaging statements made about Yuga Labs and its founders and appreciate their many positive contributions to the NFT space.”
According to Law360, a Yuga representative expressed delight that Lehman “acknowledged his role in assisting former cohorts, Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, to infringe on Yuga Labs’ trademarks in developing, marketing, and selling counterfeit NFTs.”
However, there are currently two active cases concerning Ripps’s use of BAYC collection photographs. Additionally, Jeremy Cahen has been sued for selling identical products on the same marketplaces as Yuga.
In June, Yuga filed a lawsuit against Ripps and Cahen, claiming that the two were “trolling Yuga Labs and scamming consumers” with their knockoff products. According to the complaint, Ripps made over $5 million by “pumping and dumping fake NFTs.”
On January 30th, Rosen, a law firm that specialises in protecting investors’ rights, reaffirmed that anyone who bought Yuga’s BAYC NFTs or its native token ApeCoin (APE) could file a securities class-action suit against the company.
In a lawsuit filed in December, Rosen accused Yuga Labs of breaking U.S. securities laws by misrepresenting the value of NFTs and tokens to investors through the use of celebrity endorsements.