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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
WESTERN DIVISION
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services, Inc.; EHI Internetwork and Systems Management, Inc. aka EHI-INSM, Inc.; and Michael Alan Stollery aka Michael Stollaire, Civil Action No. 18-cv-4315 DSF (JPRx)
This notice may affect your legal rights. Please read
it carefully. Among other things, failure to timely submit a claim pursuant to
the DIRECTIONS below may result in your claim being barred from a distribution
STATUS UPDATE 12/2/22:
As of this afternoon, the Receiver has sent all Distribution Election Letters, via email, to each claimant's primary email address that was listed in the original claim submission. If you previously received a notice of determination and it include an allowed amount, you should have received this letter. If not, please check your junk and clutter folders. If you still cannot locate the email, please reach out to us at TBISElections@hklaw.com.
Please use extra caution and verify that that the Selected Address is typed correctly because, as stated in the Distribution Plan, the Receiver and its Released Professionals shall not bear any liability for distributions made to wallet addresses that contain errors made by claimants. This includes circumstances where the form may contain a typographical error. Therefore, whether you selected a Validated Address or manually entered one, this is your final opportunity to confirm that the Selected Address is written correctly. Additionally remember that, once the distribution is made to your Selected Address, the transaction is final and cannot be reversed.
Pursuant to the Court-approved Distribution Plan, you will have 14 calendar days from today to submit your selection. Accordingly, December 16, 2022 is the last day to submit your elections. If you fail to make a selection within such time, the default payment method will be ether sent to one of your Validated Addresses. If you do not have any Validated Addresses, for whatever reason, you will be sent a USD Check to the mailing address listed on your original claim submission.
For a detailed explanation of the upcoming distribution procedures and calculations, please refer to the Distribution Plan located at http://tbis.io/CourtFilings.htm. The Receiver is preparing a forthcoming Distribution Motion that will disclose each Investor and Non-Investor Allowed Amounts, and the actual pro rata share that will be distributed to each claimant.
STATUS UPDATE 11/18/22:
The Receiver has completed his review of all remaining claim submissions, and at this point, all claimants should have received a notice of determination. If you have not received your notice of determination, please reach out to us at tbis@hklaw.com.
Additionally, on November 16, 2022, the United States Central District of California issued an Order granting the Stipulation to Modify the Asset Freeze, authorizing the transfer and release of Stollaire's ether to the Receiver. The following day, the Receiver's team met with a potential distribution agent to coordinate this transfer and discuss the upcoming distribution. Once this distribution procedure is finalized, the Receiver will email the Distribution Election letters to all claimants with allowed notices of determination.
We will post an announcement on the website as soon as the emailed letters are sent.
STATUS UPDATE 11/4/22:
The Receiver has completed his review of claims requiring a manual analysis of certain circumstances, such as multiple addresses, exchanges, and/or other cryptocurrency transactions that are not verifiable on the public Ethereum blockchain. As a result, more than 400 notices of determination were sent out in October, and with the exception of a small number of late submissions and determination objections, all claims have been processed and all notices of determination transmitted.
While the Receiver works to finalize the few remaining outstanding claims, he is contemporaneously preparing a Distribution Election form, which will allow claimants to select whether they wish to be paid in ETH or USD Check. This election form will be sent, in a letter, via email toall claimants who received a notice of determination with an allowed amount. The email will have instructions on how to make your selection through our online web form. For security purposes, if you elect to receive your distribution via ETH, you may only select an address that you previously validated during the claims process. Additional information will be included in your letter.
The Receiver anticipates that this letter will be emailed in the next two weeks or so; therefore, please monitor your email inboxes regularly. The letters will be sent to the primary email that you used to submit your claim, and you will have 14 days to complete the election. In the event no selection is made within the allotted time, the default selection will be payment in ETH sent to one of your validated addresses. If you do not have any validated addresses, for whatever reason, you will be sent a check (in USD) to the mailing address listed on your claim submission. We will also publish a notice on the website once the letters are sent.
Going forward, we will begin posting (here) bi-weekly status updates on the progress of the claims/distribution processes. These updates will begin this week, and continue until distributions are complete. In an effort to prioritize our goal of making the initial distributions by the end of this year, the only direct messages we will be addressing are questions or issues with an individual's claim; otherwise, all general inquiries will be redirected to our website for updates.
STATUS UPDATE 6/28/22:
To date, we have received more than one thousand claim submissions and the Receiver has sent out approximately 650 notices of determination.
The Receiver filed a Motion for Approval of Receiver’s Distribution Plan, which has been approved by the Court. Click here to view the approved Distribution Plan.
To Potential Claimant:
On May 30, 2018, the above-captioned Court entered an
Order appointing Josias Dewey as Receiver for the estate of Titanium Blockchain
Infrastructure Services (“TBIS Estate”). On August 21, 2020, the Court entered
an Order authorizing the Claims Process and Bar Date, as modified December 15,
2020. Copies of these orders and other information regarding this case are
available on the TBIS Receivership website at https://tbis.io/.
You are receiving this Notice because our records
indicate you may hold a claim against the TBIS
Estate. Receiving this Notice does not mean that you hold a claim or that your
claim will be eligible for a distribution from the TBIS Estate.
The TBIS Fraud
As alleged by the United States Securities and Exchange
Commission, Titanium President Michael Alan Stollery, a/k/a Michael Stollaire, lied about business relationships with the
Federal Reserve and dozens of well-known firms for purposes of promoting an
Initial Coin Offering (“ICO”). Titanium’s
website contained fabricated testimonials from these supposed corporate
customers. These fraudulent statements were used to promote the ICO, which Stollaire advertised through videos and social media. The
SEC's complaint charged Stollaire and Titanium with
violating Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and
Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 10b-5(a) and
10b-5(c) thereunder. The complaint charged another Stollaire
company, EHI Internetwork and Systems Management Inc., with violating Section
17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rules
10b-5(a) and 10b-5(c) thereunder.
Eligible
Claimants and Claims Process
You may be eligible to submit a claim if you:
(i) are a creditor of Titanium;
(ii) directly purchased Titanium
Bar (“BAR”) or TBAR from Titanium;
(iii) purchased BAR from a third
party (other than Titanium) prior to February 22, 2018, held such BAR through
February 22, 2018, received TBAR from Titanium by virtue of your BAR holdings,
and held such TBAR through May 29, 2018; or
(iv) purchased TBAR from a third
party (other than Titanium) prior to May 29, 2018 and held such TBAR through
May 29, 2018.
How Do I Submit
a Claim?
The deadline for submitting a claim to the TBIS Estate was 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time) on August 11, 2021. The online claim filing system is now closed. Individuals or entities with further questions should direct their correspondence to the Receiver at tbis@hklaw.com.
Notice is hereby given that all people with potential claims for recovery from the TBIS Estate should file their claim with the Receiver so that it is actually submitted on the Receiver’s online claim system, by 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Time) on August 11, 2021 (the “Bar Date”). Claims should be filed electronically through this online claim system.
Individuals or entities that believe they have good
cause to either extend the Bar Date or to submit their claim by other means
should request this from the Receiver at tbis@hklaw.com no later than the Bar Date.
Unless a claim is subject to a Receiver-granted exception, all claims against
TBIS Estate assets that are not received by the Bar Date are barred.
A link to FAQ’s with respect to the Claim Process can be found here.
A link to step-by-step instructions for setting up MetaMask for the token validation process can be found here.
Except for a small number of claims, all validated claimants should have received a notice of determination. If you have not received a notice, we will be contacting you directly by email to obtain additional information about one or more transactions that affect the calculation of your claim. If you have not received a notice of determination and we do not contact you for additional information before the close of business on Friday, January 21, 2022, then please email tbis@hklaw.com. Please make sure to include “Notice of Determination Pending” and you claim number in the subject line of the e-mail.
If you already filed an objection to your initial notice of determination, we expect to provide an initial response to your objection on or before January 28, 2022. Please disregard the 60-day requirement to file an objection with the court set out in your notice of determination. We are extending that deadline to the date that is thirty (30) days after the date we notify you of our decision to accept or deny (in whole or in part) your objection.
A number of claimants have communicated to us a desire to receive their awards in the form of ETH, and as a result, we have incorporated a mechanism in our proposed plan of distribution to permit payment of claim awards to token purchasers in ETH. Please note that the plan of distribution must still be approved by the court (see below on status).
We have completed a draft plan of distribution, which we will be transmitting to the SEC on Tuesday (as today is a U.S. holiday) for review and comment. Our goal is to incorporate any feedback from the SEC by the end of next week and file the plan with the court immediately thereafter. Once filed, we will upload a copy of the submitted plan of distribution to the tbis.io website. We expect that it will take the court at least a few weeks to consider and rule on the proposed plan of distribution. During this period of time, we expect to finish resolving any outstanding claims. For those who wish to receive their award in ETH, you do not need to do anything at this time. Prior to any distributions, we will set up a procedure for individual claimants to choose how they wish to receive their award; and for those who elect to receive ETH (again, assuming our plan of distribution is approved by the court), a secure means for those claimants to communicate a wallet address to receive their award.
Receiver Contact Information: Josias
“Joe” Dewey E-mail: tbis@hklaw.com Direct:
(305) 789-7746 Court Documents: You may
access here a copy of the
Order Appointing Receiver that was entered on May 30, 2018 by the United States
District Court for the Central District of California. A link to the SEC’s latest press
release regarding Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services, Inc. can be
found here. An update can be found in the
Receiver’s Initial Status Report, here. Lastly, links to the
Receivership Court Filings can be found, here. PLEASE NOTE, NEITHER
THE RECEIVER, NOR ANY AFFILIATE OF THE RECEIVER, WILL EVER ASK YOU TO TRANSFER
POSSESSION OF ANY CRYPTOCURRENCY (WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE “CONTROL TOKEN”
REFERENCED IN THE ONLINE CLAIMS SYSTEM) OR DISCLOSE ANY PASSWORD(S) OR PRIVATE
KEY(S) FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER. PLEASE CONTACT THE RECEIVER IMMEDIATELY IF
YOU ARE PROMPTED FOR SUCH INFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR POTENTIAL CLAIM.Objections to Initial Determinations
Payment of Claims in ETH
Plan of Distribution