Savedroid wins before Cologne Higher Regional Court

Fintech wins case at second instance. The fintech had been in dispute with its former trustee for a long time. The trustee must now hand over retained cryptocurrencies worth a good 35.3 million euros.

Another ruling has been handed down in the legal dispute involving fintech Savedroid, this time by the Cologne Higher Regional Court. The company has thus also won in the second instance against its former ICO trustee, who must pay out retained cryptocurrencies worth a good 35.3 million euros to the fintech's new trustee. He must also bear the costs of the proceedings and possible business losses of up to 1.5 million euros. Cologne has thus confirmed the ruling from Bonn from February 2020.

The company has a complicated history behind it: Savedroid raised 40 million euros with an ICO, a crypto IPO, and wanted to launch a platform for trading cryptocurrencies. Then founder Yassin Hankir staged a failed PR stunt: he switched off his company's phone and website for 24 hours and posted a picture of himself on the beach. It seemed as if he had run off with the money he had made. In the end, it turned out to be a joke intended to draw attention to the dangers of ICO IPOs. But the start-up's image is still suffering today.

The joke was followed by a wild succession of lawsuits: Savedroid sued a partner who retained ICO money; small investors sued Savedroid; the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt investigated Savedroid due to the ICO IPO. In 2020, the parent company Advanced Bitcoin Technologies AG announced that the Savedroid app would be discontinued; today, the new app Trumpbit can be found on the website. The parent company is based in Liechtenstein and bought Savedroid in 2019. In the same year, Savedroid went public once again with the help of a reverse takeover, i.e. a company takeover similar to a Spac.

With the 2018 ICO, Savedroid originally mandated its trustee to secure the process. The trustee refused to pay out the cryptocurrencies to Savedroid, which in turn ran into contractual difficulties with its investors.