PANews reported on April 22 that according to CoinDesk, the defunct digital asset banking platform BANKEX and its foundation filed a complaint with the New York State Supreme Court on March 19, alleging that former employees Alexandr Vlasov and Petr Korolev stole the company's technology to establish Matter Labs. The complaint stated that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin contacted BANKEX in 2017 and commissioned it to develop operating software for the "Plasma" technology, which was then seen as a solution to reduce the cost of using Ethereum. As BANKEX employees, Vlasov and Korolev were assigned by CEO Igor Khmel to lead the project. However, the two were accused of secretly establishing a competing company, Matter Labs, "with the intention of profiting from the company's appropriation of BANKEX's blockchain technology and competing directly with BANKEX." The complaint further claimed that the two used BANKEX resources and funds to secretly transfer technology to Matter Labs and developed and stored an operating code base. According to LinkedIn information, Vlasov is currently the head of research and development at Matter Labs, and Korolev is the founder of blockchain security company OXORIO. Also indicted are Matter Labs co-founder Alex Gluchowski, crypto-native investment fund Dragonfly, and Placeholder Capital partner and former Matter Labs co-director Chris Burniske, all for alleged involvement in or knowledge of the theft. A Matter Labs spokesperson said the allegation was “baseless” and that ZKsync was original technology and had nothing to do with any code developed by BANKEX.