After the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission, it is Mango Labs which files a complaint against Avraham Eisenberg. The company is claiming the $47 million retained by “Avi” following his manipulation of the MNGO token price last October, in addition to damages.
Mango Markets files suit against Avi
A new complaint has been filed against Avraham Eisenberg, the manipulator of the Mango Markets platform who managed to generate $114 million in profits on the MNGO token. This time it is Mango Labs, the firm behind the protocol itself, that is suing “Avi”.
According to the document filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan), Mango Labs is seeking the $47 million retained by Avraham Eisenberg as a result of the market manipulation and after returning some of the funds to the protocol, in addition to unspecified damages.
At the time, Avi publicly admitted to being responsible for the operation, claiming that he had only used the protocol “as it was designed” and that it was “a highly profitable strategy”. By using 2 accounts simultaneously, Eisenberg had managed to drive up the price of swaps by 1,300% on Mango Markets using perpetual contracts.
MNGO token price with manipulation highlighted
Avraham Eisenberg had offered to return the majority of the funds in exchange for dropping all criminal charges against him via a vote on the Mango Markets governance forum. However, in the complaint, the protocol stated that this agreement was made “under duress” and was therefore mechanically “invalid and unenforceable”.
The trader is now under fire from a number of criminal charges, as he is also being sued by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and now the Mango Markets Protocol. Avi was previously arrested in Puerto Rico, and has since been jailed pending trial.
According to the latest information, Avraham Eisenberg still does not have a lawyer to defend his case. If convicted of the charges he faces, Avraham Eisenberg would become the first US citizen to be convicted of market manipulation in the world of decentralised finance (DeFi).
