Court File No. CV-21-00654929-0000
Equibit Group Ltd. v. Christian Saucier et al.
Related: The Assassination of Equibit · Phase Two
Equibit Group Ltd. and Chris Horlacher delivered a Reply to the Statements of Defence filed by Christian Saucier, David McFadzean, Bart de Groot, Abdelaziz Oulad Hadj, and others. The Reply rejects those defences and holds the original claims.
The Saucier Action
In January 2021, Equibit commenced legal action against former senior employees and certain investors for breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of company property, bad faith conduct, and libel. The claim alleges that internal sabotage and public defamation campaigns contributed significantly to the company’s collapse.
What the Defendants Pleaded
The defendants largely denied the allegations. Notable positions include:
- Claims that defamatory statements were made in good faith and were “substantially true”
- Assertions that the Equibit software was open-source under the MIT license and that no fixed seed node was required for the network
- Portrayals of certain defendants as unsophisticated investors who lost life savings
- Denial of knowledge regarding many of the serious allegations
Equibit’s Reply
In its reply, Equibit strongly contests these positions and notes the striking lack of supporting evidence from the defendants. Key rebuttals include:
- High-Risk Nature Clearly Disclosed: All investors, including Bart de Groot and Abdelaziz Oulad Hadj, signed Simple Agreements for Future Tokens (SAFTs) that explicitly warned of the substantial risks involved in the project. Claims of being misled are contradicted by the signed documents.
- Financial Transparency: Equibit’s financial records were regularly reviewed by external Chartered Accountants, and audited by both the Canada Revenue Agency and the Ontario Securities Commission. No evidence of personal misuse of funds has been presented.
- Technical and Operational Reality: The defence arguments regarding the network infrastructure and post-departure actions are inconsistent with internal records, code history, and the actual events surrounding the mainnet launch and subsequent collapse.
- GitHub Activity: Public records show former insiders actively forking Equibit’s repositories, rebranding the project (OCEAN → Tesseract), and continuing development shortly after departure — actions that support the plaintiffs’ allegations of misappropriation and competing activities.
The reply emphasizes that while the defendants make serious counter-allegations and denials, they have failed to produce meaningful documentary evidence to support their version of events.
Place in the Equibit Lawsuit
This is the second action: CV-21-00654929-0000. It sits beside the CSIS file, not inside it. Origin narrative: The Assassination of Equibit. Continuation: Phase Two.
This lawsuit represents the internal betrayal and defamation front of what plaintiffs describe as the broader “Assassination of Equibit.” It runs parallel to the larger action involving alleged intelligence agency involvement and technical sabotage. The case continues in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. As discoveries proceed, further evidence is expected to come to light.
Read the full Reply:
The public documentation of this case continues to grow. We believe transparency and primary evidence are the most effective tools for accountability.
If you believe former insiders and those who allegedly facilitated the destruction of innovative Canadian technology should be held accountable, please share this post and the equibitlawsuit.com archive.
