Apollo Initiates U.S. Legal Action Against Jelurida

On July 8, Apollo Fintech filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas against Swiss-based Jelurida Limited and other 20 affiliated legal entities and individuals. Jelurida is a software firm with its team mainly based in Switzerland that develops and maintains the Ardor and Nxt blockchain software. Two days later, Jelurida’s Dutch lawyers filed a countersuit in Amsterdam in a “sour grapes” lawsuit.

Apollo’s U.S. legal action seeks to:

• Obtain expedited Declaratory Relief regarding the Parties’ rights and obligations with respect to copyrights owned by Plaintiffs (Apollo Fintech USA and Apollo Foundation Ltd.) and public domain materials claimed as owned by Defendants (Jelurida and its developers);
• Have the rights and obligations of the Parties with respect to open source computer software publicly deposited and publicly available to all in the United States and globally.

Abusive and Extortive Business Practices

“We are taking a stand against Jelurida’s coercive practices, including tactics against users of Nxt open-source software the Defendant may have falsely claimed to own,” says Steve McCullah, CEO of Apollo Fintech. “Apollo Blockchain is not a clone of Nxt as our developers have added nearly 400,000 lines of code in 20 work years that has refactored the blockchain.”

McCullah added, “In the coming weeks, these proceedings may shed light on Jelurida’s misstatements about developer authorization, as well as aggressive methods which seem designed to extract payments.”

Nxt Authorization in Question

It has become apparent that Jelurida does not possess full ownership of the Nxt software, nor does Defendants possess proper authorization from Nxt’s developers to monetize the open-source software.

Jelurida, through its legal representatives, have stated they have permission to the code in question not in its entirety since 8% of it was never assigned to Jelurida. Although 8% is already enough to contest ownership of all the licensed code, Apollo is confident of the fact that the U.S. proceeding will shed light on possibly a higher percentage of the code not being legitimately attributable to Jelurida.

Slanderous Claims

The Defendant has also published false statements online which are designed to harm the Apollo Fintech project:

• That Apollo’s CEO has allegedly founded a new country. It’s not true.
• That Apollo’s website is built on Wix.com. The Apollo website was built from pure code.
• That Apollo’s team is based in Russia. Not a single team member resides in Russia or has.
• That Apollo censors critics. It never has.

Apollo Fintech is convinced that the U.S. proceeding will reveal Jelurida’s hidden, predatory and misleading practices whose objectives seem to (1) coerce and/or entrap good-faith users of the Nxt open-source software and (2) extract monetary compensation for such use despite the Defendant’s false claims of ownership and authorization.

Apollo Fintech is a leading blockchain company that develops world-shaping fintech solutions for a global economy. Apollo has offices in Africa and North America with plans to expand in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Apollo Fintech is becoming a global leader in Government blockchain solutions, as well as pioneer of international mass adoption.

Learn more at aplfintech.com.