[Budget] Legal Services

1

tldr;

Proposal to approve US$10,000 to engage the legal services of a specialised crypto lawyer in relation to recovery of funds following the recent bug exploit.

Context

  • Most of the funds taken during a recent bug exploit were sent to Centralised Exchanges.
  • We have lodged reports of the incident with the relevant exchanges and all funds have been temporarily frozen
  • Exchanges now require official police reports to return the misappropriated funds back to REF

Proposal

Approve budged of US$10,000 to engage the services of Michael Bacina, partner at Piper Alderman in Sydney and leading blockchain lawyer in Australia.

The funds will be used to pay for the following services:

  • Lodging Police Complaint in Australia and obtain the required Police Certificate that would satisfy the Exchanges requirements
  • Liaise with Police and other investigating bodies
  • Liaise with Exchanges.

Michael brings in a lot of experience and connections in both the Cybercrimes space and the Exchanges Legal Counsels.

We believe this is a very modest and reasonable amount which can help us expedite the recovery of funds, which is a top priority ATM.

8 Likes
2

sounds good

would there be a contract?

1 Like
3

I 100% agree if this could help us solve the exploit case.

Is there any guarantee about the result like a contract between the service side and us? Maybe a list of actions and time for each action, which helps the community be more straightforward to measure.

1 Like
4

The fee is very reasonable to help file a police report and work with exchanges to return locked funds. Considering the number of funds that can potentially be returned and that other offers wanted X amount of returned funds, this is our best path forward. Thanks for helping facilitate this AVB.

1 Like
5

Yes. Unless there are any considerations in play that require some special arrangements to be made, we* would be entering into a Legal Services Agreement with the firm, and instructing them to act accordingly.

  • can be any member of the Community Board DAO that has been authorised to act on behalf of Ref. I am the current appointed representative liaising with the firm.
6

I agree with this propose, it is reasonable.

7

Could you please show us any results?

8

Progress Update:

  • The lawyer is Sydney has been engaged.
  • No funds have been disbursed yet, we will get invoiced for the work done upon completion of the work.
  • I am waiting on the REF team to provide the documentation requested by the lawyer in order to proceed. The Team has provided updates during our weekly calls, they’ve been very busy with the launch of several key features on the exchange.

PS - tips on how to engage on a public forum without coming across like hostile actor. Try asking ‘please provide an update on this’ (it implies the situation is still ongoing, asks for latest information) rather than ‘can you please show us any results?’ (it implies wrongdoing, that the situation is able and that I am unable to prove ‘anything’ was done. Sick of this confrontational rubbish)

5 Likes
10

“What the layer name and phone number?”
→ It’s literally in the proposal and with a link to his website
“You got $10000 and I wanna see some results.”
→ I don’t think you understood the tip ser

11

Awesome solution, hope this get solved soon ! Good job buddy ! :white_check_mark: