Following recent travails of Nigeria-focused crypto platform, Patricia Technologies, the firm’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder, Hanu Fejiro, has announced that the Crypto firm will go ahead with its repayment plan despite the shocking withdrawal of DLM Trust Company
DLM Trust, a subsidiary of DLM Capital Group, had on Tuesday last week, announced its partnership with Patricia Technologies, saying it will “ensure a seamless and secure process for the return of deposits to Patricia Technologies Limited’s valued customers.”
Patricia is attempting to raise new financing several weeks after admitting it lost $2 million worth of customer assets to a cyberattack last year. This represents the Lithuania-based company’s latest move to repay customers.
In August, Patricia converted the rest of its customers’ assets into a debt management token—the Patricia token. The abrupt arrangement triggered an outcry from customers, forcing the company to issue a detailed explanation of the token. Despite the new token, Patricia admitted that its repayment plan is tied to its profitability as a platform, although it has no timeline for financial sustainability.
With the company’s new fundraising efforts, Patricia is hoping it can raise enough money to repay frustrated customers.
However, with the withdrawal of DLM Trust, Patricia CEO in a statement released to the media, explained that despite this minor surprising setback, customers will still receive their refunds as scheduled for November 20, 2023.
“We at Patricia Technologies are shocked by DLM Trust Company’s sudden and unilateral decision to terminate our partnership. This development is coming as a surprise as we were not informed before their public statement of withdrawal. However, we wish to assure our depositors and stakeholders, that the Repayment plan we initiated along with DLM Trustees a few days ago, will go on as scheduled,” Fejiro affirmed.
DLM Trust had cited breach of contractual agreement by Patricia as reason for pulling out.
But Fejiro has his views: “It must be noted that our appointment of DLM Trustees was a culmination of several weeks of engagement with the leadership of the Group including Mr. Kehinde Lawal of DLM Group and Mrs. Lola Rasaq, the CEO of DLM Trust Company up to the point of signing the partnership. During the process and the immediate aftermath of the agreement, we at Patricia Technologies have conducted ourselves with the utmost professionalism, while observing all due processes including fulfilling our financial commitments to consummate the contractual agreement.
Evidence of this is the transfer of substantial funds to DLM Trustees as part of the planned payouts to our customers, scheduled to start from November 20, 2023.
It is therefore astounding to us that not only has DLM Trustees chosen to renege on our agreement, but that they failed to issue us a notice, or extend the basic courtesy of a prior discussion, in stark disregard for the clearly spelt termination clause in our contract.”
He expressed shock at DLM Trust’s claim that Patricia broke the terms and conditions of the partnership without spelling out how. “We not only categorically reject this false claim, we challenge DLM Trustees to substantiate the allegations.”
Fejiro further warned: “We believe this accusation is baseless, and we might be taking legal action to seek restitution for setbacks and damages incurred as a result of this attempt at defamation, if DLM Trust fails to validate their claim.”
While apologising for inconvenience and concerns the situation may have generated among its customers, and appreciating their “enduring trust and patronage”, Patricia’s CEO reaffirmed the firm’s commitment to paying from November 20 as scheduled, and noted that the situation presents “another opportunity to show that not only are we resilient as an organization, but our commitment to you also remains steadfast.”
