Court Throws Out PureFunds Lawsuit Against ETFMG

Earlier today the Honorable Katherine R Dupuis, Presiding Judge of the Chancery Court sitting in Union County New Jersey, dismissed the complaint filed in May 2017 by Andrew Chanin and PureFunds (together, Plaintiffs) against ETF Managers Group (ETFMG), its affiliates and principals because of the Plaintiffs’ continuing failure to abide by court rules and a court discovery order.

ETFMG had sought dismissal of the lawsuit based on Plaintiff’s failure to produce a single document to support their claims by the court-ordered deadline. In contrast, ETFMG had produced thousands of documents that refuted Plaintiffs’ allegations and supported ETFMG‘s counterclaims against Andrew Chanin and PureFunds. In addition, ETFMG had obtained documents, emails and sworn testimony from non-party Nasdaq that ETFMG believes further refuted PureFunds’s claims and significantly bolstered ETFMG’s counterclaims.

At today’s hearing, the court was informed of examples of the ample evidence undermining Plaintiffs’ claims, as well as a remarkable agreement between Nasdaq and Chanin to discuss ETFMG-related matters using Chanin’s personal email address in order to avoid detection by ETFMG which, by regulation and contract, was obliged to monitor Chanin’s business email.

Notably, in addition to dismissing the case, the court ordered Andrew Chanin and PureFunds to pay to ETFMG legal fees and expenses that ETFMG had incurred as a result of Plaintiffs’ violation of the court’s discovery order.

Having disposed of this meritless New Jersey-based case, ETFMG next turns to the closely related case filed against it by Nasdaq in the Southern District Court of New York. In addition to vigorously defending the meritless claims lodged by Nasdaq, ETFMG anticipates filing significant counterclaims against Nasdaq on Friday, January 26, 2018.

ETFMG CEO and Founder Sam Masucci said, “We are extremely pleased that the court saw fit to throw out this frivolous lawsuit and to make Andrew Chanin and PureFunds pay our legal fees on this motion. We will now turn our attention to the equally baseless Nasdaq lawsuit, where we intend to hold Nasdaq accountable as well.” Mr. Masucci added, “When someone, no matter who or how powerful, threatens our investors, partners, or independent trustees, we will not be bullied. We will not back down from protecting those who are an integral part of ETFMG’s platinum level of products and services. We would like to thank our legal counsel, Sean Coffey, his able team at Kramer Levin, as well as co-counsel Brian Fruehling, for their aggressive advocacy on our behalf, and we look forward to their prompt vindication of our interests in the Nasdaq litigation as well.”

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