Please note: Since the publication of this article, BIV has been informed that all claims have been dropped and that this matter has been discontinued.
More than two dozen investors are suing Istuary Group founder Ethan Sun and several others, claiming they were duped out of millions before Sun fled to China as his companies teetered on bankruptcy.
The group of 27 plaintiffs filed a notice of civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court on October 5. The defendants include Sun, his wife and bookkeeper Yulan Hu, Shuangjie Yang aka Belinda Yang, who was CFO of eight Istuary limited partnerships, Netint Technologies Inc., which bought Istuary's assets at auction, and several others.
According to the lawsuit, Ethan Sun created 31 companies and eight limited partnerships starting in 2013 as part of an "investment opportunity" in British Columbia.
"Ethan marketed Istuary as a one-stop technology shop that was working on development cuttingm-edge technology from semiconductors, robotics, big data analytics and chipsets, to facial recognition," the claim states.
Sun allegedly used pictures with politicians including Christy Clark and Justin Trudeau as props in presentations where he "quickly moved to solicit funds from the public, first targeting the Vancouver-based fellow ethnic Chinese community, the Plaintiffs, and other Chinese in China seeking to migrate to Canada for greener pastures."
The plaintiffs claim they invested millions with Sun, who rented out two entire office floors, and hired 180 people "in an effort merely to bolster his public image," the claim states. But Istuary allegedly didn't produce anything in the offices, which were "staffed with individuals, most of whom were ill-qualified for the respective positions and had, contrary to all applicable Canadians laws, simply paid for positions masqueraded as legitimate employment."
The employees allegedly came directly from China "having paid Ethan as much as $100,000 USD." In 2017, Sun's business partners put the Istuary Group into bankruptcy and allegedly formed a new company to buy up its assets "at a give-away price."
"Essentially, Ethan had forced his companies into bankruptcy, conducted a fraudulent auction and sold the company to former Directors and friends, then fled to China," the suit states.
The plaintiffs and other investors claim they are out $10,756,390 USD and $3,855,368 CAD in total. Meanwhile, lawsuits in China against Ethan Sun and others accuse the former executives of selling-off valuable intellectual property "by fraudulent means."
The plaintiffs are 0924509 B.C. Ltd., Harrison Huan, Yiwang Family Trust, 0882682 B.C Ltd., Michael Day, Lihua Zhang, Fang Liu, Xin Yang, Xinyu Chen, Fang Wang, Shenli Mu, Minlian Chen, Canada W.Y. Holdings Ltd., Ling Zhao, Hao Tang, Minghui Zheng, Zhiping Yan, Dylan Holdings Ltd., Quan Gu, Ting Guo, Yuefang Huang, Liwen Yin, Chunyu Liu, Zhongping Zhang, Dan Zhang, Fang Liu, and Xuexin Guan. The defendants are Yi An Sun aka Ethan Sun, Ylan Hu, Jichun Ge, Network Intelligence Inc., Shuangjie Yang, Martin Szlavy, Zhi Xiong Chen aka Chi Hung Chan aka Tsz Hung Chan, Xiao Jing Zhou, Netint Technologies Inc. aka 1130489 B.C. Ltd., Lixin Wang, and Shi Gang Wang.
The plaintiffs seek damages for breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment, as well as constructive trusts over several B.C. properties owned by the defendants allegedly bought with misappropriated funds.
The allegations have not been proven or tested in court and the defendants had not responded to the claim by press time.
