But Winston Strawn betrayed its fiduciary duties owed to GloriFi in favor of appeasing and protecting Toby Neugebauer (\u201cNeugebauer\u201d) \u2013 GloriFi\u2019s wealthy founder, CEO, and majority shareholder who, with the active participation and assistance of Winston Strawn, repeatedly engaged in destructive self-dealing and pressure campaigns against GloriFi\u2019s interests, outside investors, and independent board members.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The complaint continues, \u201cAt every turn, Winston Strawn conceded to, and assisted Neugebauer in, his unrelenting desire to engage in rampant self-dealing and helped Neugebauer run roughshod over GloriFi and its many other stakeholders.\u201d This allegedly led high-profile investors \u2014 Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Ken Griffin, and Vivek Ramaswamy \u2014 to lose confidence in the company. As such, \u201cWinston Strawn\u2019s wrongdoing was a proximate cause in the nearly $2 billion in lost enterprise value suffered by GloriFi.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, GloriFi\u2019s trustee filed a strikingly similar lawsuit<\/a> against another law firm, Chapman and Cutler, for taking positions adverse to GloriFi\u2019s interests to please Neugebauer, the firm\u2019s \u201cprized, self-proclaimed billionaire client.\u201d I guess it has to be *someone\u2019s* fault that \u201canti-woke\u201d financial services never became a thing.<\/p>\n The firm has a decidedly different take, saying,\u201dWinston & Strawn adheres to the highest level of ethical and legal standards in our work on behalf of our clients. While we will not comment on active litigation, we look forward to addressing these meritless claims and correcting the record in court.\u201d<\/p>\n You can read the full complaint below.<\/p>\n The post \u2018Anti-Woke\u2019 Startup Suing Biglaw Firm Because Why The Hell Not<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bankrupt \u201canti-woke\u201d financial technology startup GloriFi\u00a0is shooting their shot against Biglaw. Via trustee Scott M. Seidel, they filed a complaint in Texas bankruptcy court against Winston & Strawn and one of its partners seeking $1.7 billion in damages, alleging malpractice and a breach of fiduciary duties.<\/p>\n GloriFi purported to be an \u201canti-woke\u201d financial services firm for customers who care about that sort of thing, and hired Winston to go\u00a0public at valuation of $1.7 billion. However that never happened, and the complaint alleges it was all the Biglaw firm\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n From the court filing:<\/p>\n But Winston Strawn betrayed its fiduciary duties owed to GloriFi in favor of appeasing and protecting Toby Neugebauer (\u201cNeugebauer\u201d) \u2013 GloriFi\u2019s wealthy founder, CEO, and majority shareholder who, with the active participation and assistance of Winston Strawn, repeatedly engaged in destructive self-dealing and pressure campaigns against GloriFi\u2019s interests, outside investors, and independent board members.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The complaint continues, \u201cAt every turn, Winston Strawn conceded to, and assisted Neugebauer in, his unrelenting desire to engage in rampant self-dealing and helped Neugebauer run roughshod over GloriFi and its many other stakeholders.\u201d This allegedly led high-profile investors \u2014 Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Ken Griffin, and Vivek Ramaswamy \u2014 to lose confidence in the company. As such, \u201cWinston Strawn\u2019s wrongdoing was a proximate cause in the nearly $2 billion in lost enterprise value suffered by GloriFi.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year, GloriFi\u2019s trustee filed a strikingly similar lawsuit<\/a> against another law firm, Chapman and Cutler, for taking positions adverse to GloriFi\u2019s interests to please Neugebauer, the firm\u2019s \u201cprized, self-proclaimed billionaire client.\u201d I guess it has to be *someone\u2019s* fault that \u201canti-woke\u201d financial services never became a thing.<\/p>\n The firm has a decidedly different take, saying,\u201dWinston & Strawn adheres to the highest level of ethical and legal standards in our work on behalf of our clients. While we will not comment on active litigation, we look forward to addressing these meritless claims and correcting the record in court.\u201d<\/p>\n You can read the full complaint below.<\/p>\n 2389000-2389452-complaint<\/a>Download<\/a><\/p>\n Bankrupt \u201canti-woke\u201d financial technology startup GloriFi\u00a0is shooting their shot against Biglaw. Via trustee Scott M. Seidel, they filed a complaint in Texas bankruptcy court against Winston & Strawn and one of its partners seeking $1.7 billion in damages, alleging malpractice and a breach of fiduciary duties. GloriFi purported to be an \u201canti-woke\u201d financial services firm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":133532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-Siiotv.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568.jpg?resize=174%2C160&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/09\/GettyImages-915254108-300x199.jpg?resize=300%2C199&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
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\nKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @[email\u00a0protected].<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"