Australian sports betting company PlayUp is suing its US CEO

The Australian betting company was granted a temporary restraining order last week against its CEO after alleging possible “irreparable damage” to his breach of contract.

According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada on November 30, negotiations to extend the contract to Dr. Laila Mintas – who was announced PlayUp as U.S. CEO in July 2020 – collapsed and led to inappropriate actions by Mintas.

The allegations include that he “mContact Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried, a third party owner company FTX, and told him that there is a contradiction within the management From PlayUp and has thus caused the transaction to fail for FTX. “

Mintas is also suspected of threatening to contact U.S. gaming regulators and made false statements PlayUp in the hope that it would damages PlayUp’s reputation and reputation “and results in the revocation of its gaming license in the states concerned”.

PlayUp at the moment operates in New Jersey and Colorado, and more U.S. states are in the works.

The alleged threats of harmful statements to PlayUp’s business partners and customers could “put it in liquidation or go bankrupt,” according to the lawsuit. According to the lawyers, the deadline was 30 November, the date on which Mintas’ contract expired and the date on which the action was brought.

Why a TRO?

According to the application: “In his capacity as CEO PlayUp Inc. and his leadership in PlayUp, Dr. Mintas attends a monthly board meetingtings with PlayUp, during which everyone PlayUp’s financial statements and matters will be discussed and during which copies of PlayUp’s financial statements will be made available to him.

“In addition, Dr. Mintas will usually be provided with any information or records he or she requests either the same or the next day from PlayUp management, otherwise he or she will have free access to the PlayUp Registry Direct file / data sharing platform, where all PlayUp records are stored and accessed in real time.

“Based on Dr. Mintas’ actions and threats, PlayUp reasonably believes that it will have sufficient access to PlayUp’s information, records, regulators, customers, subsidiaries and trading partners to immediately implement the threats it raises against the confidentiality and negative provisions of its Agreement.

“Mintas has also announced its intention to work directly with FTX in the event of a breach non-compete obligation in his contract

Judge ‘s reasoning

In a December 3 order, U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro wrote:

“Given the timing and order of events and without evidence, the court can reasonably conclude that defendant continually contempts the plaintiff in carrying out its threats to damage the plaintiff’s reputation and position.… On November 10, 2011, defendant threatened to” burn PlayUp to the ground. ” that the defendant carried out its threat to damage the reputation, position and goodwill of PlayUp.

‘If the defendant fails to comply with his threats to disseminate false information about the plaintiff, the imposition of this temporary restraining order will not harm the defendant.

“On the contrary, even if the defendant undermined the applicant ‘s reputation and position, the imposition of that temporary restraining order would not harm any of the defendant’ s personal interests.

PlayUp executives say Mintas sought to replace company founder Daniel Simic as global CEO, double his salary to $ 1 million and raise his equity to 15 percent.

Mintas did not immediately respond to the request for comment.

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