Cleary Gottlieb represented Polychain Alchemy LLC (Polychain) in securing dismissal of a putative class action asserting civil RICO conspiracy claims in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
On March 29, 2024, Judge Laura Hatcher granted Polychain’s motion to dismiss in full. Plaintiffs had alleged a RICO conspiracy among the owners, operators, and investors in a cryptocurrency bridge related to damages plaintiffs suffered when the bridge was hacked and their cryptocurrency was stolen. The court found that due to the intervening acts of the hackers, the plaintiffs failed to establish the necessary proximate causation to establish a RICO claim. Without a RICO claim, the court found that the plaintiffs’ RICO conspiracy claim also necessarily failed.