Following JPMorgan Chase’s lawsuit opened against Tesla last year with proposed damages in the amount of $162.2 million USD, Tesla is countersuing the bank for seeking a “pure windfall” in the original suit.
Tesla announced plans to countersue JPMorgan Chase on Monday, claiming that the bank was acting in “bad faith” when proposing it was entitled to a $162.2 million settlement, according to Reuters.
JPMorgan’s original lawsuit was brought against Tesla for a 2018 tweet from CEO Elon Musk saying he might take the automaker private – a plan that he dropped in just 17 days, causing share price volatility.
Lawsuit Asks Judge to Make Elon Musk Repay Billions from SolarCity Deal https://t.co/s4x1HNHCm3
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) January 18, 2022
Tesla noted in its recent lawsuit that JPMorgan changed the terms of warrants it had received upon Tesla’s sale of convertible bonds as far back as 2014, according to the company’s filing in a Manhattan federal court.
In the filing, Tesla said “JPMorgan dealt itself a pure windfall” by changing the terms of warrants.
The filing continued, “JPMorgan pressed its exorbitant demand as an act of retaliation against Tesla both for it having passed over JPMorgan in major business deals and out of senior JPMorgan executives’ animus toward Mr. Musk.”
“There is no merit to their claim. This comes down to fulfilling contractual obligations,” said a JP Morgan spokesman to Reuters.
Last year, Musk noted that he’d be giving JPMorgan a 1-star Yelp review if they didn’t withdraw the lawsuit, though he failed to mention the oncoming countersuit we’re seeing today.
