U.S. court permanently dismisses lawsuit against Uniswap

Key points:

• A US federal court has finally dismissed a class action lawsuit against Uniswap Labs and Hayden Adams.
• The court found the platform's developers not liable for the fraudulent actions of third parties.
• Following the ruling, the UNI token rose by approximately 6% amid the overall market rally.

A U.S. federal court has permanently closed the class-action lawsuit against Uniswap Labs and its founder, Hayden Adams. The case, which sought to hold the company responsible for the circulation of fraudulent tokens on its protocol, has been fully dismissed.

New York Judge Katherine Polk Failla declined to consider the plaintiffs’ amended claims and barred them from refiling on the same grounds. In her ruling, she stated that the creators of a decentralized platform are not responsible for the actions of third-party token issuers.

The plaintiffs argued that they suffered financial losses due to pump-and-dump schemes. According to their claims, the mere operation of the trading protocol allegedly enabled the fraud.

Nearly Two Years of Litigation

The case began in 2022. Initially, it included claims under federal securities laws, but those were dismissed in 2023. An appellate court upheld that decision and sent the case back for review solely on claims based on state law.

In the final ruling, the court stated that the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence that the company was aware of the alleged fraud. The accusations of consumer protection violations and unjust enrichment were also not substantiated.

Uniswap Labs’ Chief Legal Officer, Brian Nistler, called the verdict significant for the entire decentralized finance industry. According to him, the court once again confirmed that developing open-source software does not make its creators liable for bad actors who misuse it.

Hayden Adams echoed that position, emphasizing that responsibility for fraudulent conduct lies with those who commit it—not with the developers of the underlying technology.

Following the announcement, the UNI token rose approximately 6%, reaching $3.92. The increase coincided with broader gains across the cryptocurrency market.