The claim was filed on 4 November in the US District Court for the District of Colorado. The defendants also include the organisation’s Singapore branch, EF co-executive director Bastian Aue and two recruitment agencies, according to forklog.com.
Fulton headed the Protocol Support group, which coordinated the work of the project’s core developers.
According to the claim, the dispute began in February when management sent staff a draft of the fund’s new mandate — the EF Mandate. It enshrined Ethereum’s key principles:
– resistance to censorship;
– open source;
– privacy;
– security.
However, it also contained a section entitled the ‘Source Seppuku Licence’, under which the authors of the text pledged to take their own lives by seppuku (harakiri) should they deviate from the mandate’s principles.
According to Fulton, staff did not take to the new provision straight away — 79 of them voted to remove this clause. Amidst the outcry, Aue explained that the words were ‘symbolic and should not be taken literally’. Nevertheless, the Source Seppuku Licence remained in the final version of the document, published on 13 March.
A week after the release, Aue demanded that staff confirm their commitment to the new principles in writing. He threatened those who refused with dismissal, though not directly, but rather by suggesting they might resign of their own accord.
Fulton and her colleague Trent Van Epps drafted a collective letter, which was signed by 53 staff members. All of them supported the foundation’s direction but disagreed with certain terms of the mandate.
Management accepted the letter: Aue decided to regard all those who had signed it as having agreed to the mandate. However, on 6 April, Fulton and Van Epps were dismissed within the space of about half an hour of each other, without any explanation. The claimant emphasised, however, that her work had been highly rated: a few months before the dispute, she had received a 21.9 per cent pay rise.
Arguments
In support of her version of events, Fulton cited excerpts from a conversation with Buterin that took place on 1 May in Norway. She recorded part of the conversation.
At the time, the Ethereum co-founder allegedly said that it was important to understand what kind of behaviour the foundation was prepared to encourage. If they gave in to employees following a public scandal, others would start demanding the same treatment, he added.
Fulton regards these words as proof that she was dismissed for organising a collective protest.
Furthermore, the claimant accused the foundation of discrimination on the grounds of her health and of breaching her right to sick leave. Thirteen days before her dismissal, she informed management that she had been diagnosed with cancer and that doctors had drawn up a treatment plan. The court has not yet considered these arguments.
Fulton is seeking compensation for lost earnings and damages, as well as a ruling that the termination agreement she signed does not prevent her from taking legal action. She has not disclosed the total amount of her claims.
It should be recalled that in June, the Ethereum Foundation made 54 staff members redundant — around 20 per cent of its workforce — as part of a major reorganisation. Management explained the changes as necessary to focus resources on key areas of development for the ecosystem of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation.
This story was translated with the assistance of artificial intelligence.The translation was also reviewed by the Logos Press editorial team.
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