Aragon says that it stopped funding Autark for breach of agreements. Autark calls for compliance with the contract that guaranteed funds until August 2020.
Aragon, the startup for creating and managing Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO), and the American company Autark, recently revealed that they have a legal dispute. They will solve it in a conventional Swiss court and not at Aragon Court, the decentralized court active on the Ethereum blockchain.
The origin of the conflict between Aragon and Autark is related to Aragon Governance Proposals (AGP) grant number 73, awarded to the American company through Flock. This is a funding program aimed at injecting capital to develop ideas and tools that contribute to the growth of the Aragon ecosystem.
A series of conflicts subsequently led lock to close, but the program has sponsored various projects. As one of its beneficiaries, in January 2019, Autark’s project received the community’s approval (with 54% of the votes) of funds, which amounted to 390 thousand DAI and 350 thousand ANT tokens, through AGP-19 grant. According to Aragon, the funding that Autark received was around USD 750,000.
Subsequently, Autark received a second grant from Aragon, AGP-73 (with votes from 99% of the community) and everything was developing normally. Then, Aragon decided to suspend payments, as detailed in the statement from the American company.
Autark said that they have been discussing with Aragon’s lawyers since January of this year, which should have led to an agreement. However, Aragon recently filed a lawsuit to terminate the agreement, which reportedly impelled Autark to make their version of events public.
Aragon alleges that it decided not to continue funding Autark due to non-compliance with the agreement. They add that they allowed three additional months after announcing their decision so that the company would obtain other sources of funding. They also say that they offered to help them raise funds and compete for other grant programs, but the company chose not to accept the suggestion.
In its document, Aragon states that Autark only reached one of the thirteen goals established. The Open Enterprise project is the only one that would represent less than 0.015% of the assets managed in Aragonese organizations, one of the main reasons why the Association decided to stop the funding. However, they also mentioned other reasons, such as personal problems (including threats) and breach of confidentiality (including defamation).
Autark accuses the founders of Aragon Luis Cuende and Jorge Izquierdo, rather than the Aragonese community, of trying to terminate the AGP-73 grant. They suspect that the intention behind the Association’s legal action is not to pay the outstanding debt.
An article by DeFi Rate author Cooper Turley notes that the Aragon community wants the conflict with Autark to be solved directly at Aragon court, with the participation of native ANJ tokens and community members in general. Cooper also says that there is no observable explanation for the fact that the Association resorted to the jurisdiction of Switzerland to solve a conflict similar to those solved at Aragon Court.
By Willmen Blanco
