Tether’s funds worth over $1b reportedly appear at the heart of legal battle

The largest stablecoin issuer Tether deposited more than $1 billion with a firm currently at the center of a legal battle in London’s High Court.

Tether‘s deposit worth more than $1 billion, which was made with a subsidiary of Britannia Financial Group, appears in a legal battle between Britannia Financial and Arbitral International, a British Virgin Islands-based company, the Financial Times has learned, citing court filings.

According to the report, Tether opened an account with the subsidiary back in November 2021, when its market capitalization grew by $3 billion just within one week, according to CoinGecko data.

As per the court filing, Britannia failed to pay the full price for a Bahamas-based brokerage it bought from Arbitral in June 2021. An agreement between Britannia and Arbitral included an extra payment based on the amount of revenue-generating assets the business held a year after its sale, including the assets from clients introduced by Arbitral.

Under the agreement, Arbitral argues that Britannia owes it extra money, noting that Tether’s deposit was made following the sale. Britannia Financial denies the allegations, saying that the stablecoin issuer deposited the funds not with the brokerage firm, but with its London-based subsidiary Britannia Global Markets.

According to Britannia, Tether was introduced to the firm by Aldo Mazzella, a “professional introducer” who had a commercial relationship with the stablecoin giant since 2017. Arbitral, in its turn, claims that an executive at the brokerage firm also participated in the introduction. As of press time, Tether made no public statements on the matter.

In late August 2023, Tether tapped Britannia as its dollar transfer provider. While it’s unclear when both entities started collaborating, the Bahamas-based bank became the third entity in the country to work with Tether.