Some of the side effects to Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp have been good for the messaging industry while others haven’t been so good. One of the latter is the resulting greed that’s been apparent in many cases.
One of these cases is the recent lawsuit of Russian social network VKontakte’s shareholders against VKontakte’s CEO Pavel Durov over control of the Telegram messaging service, a service that he himself developed.
The lawsuit is being headed by United Capital Partners, which owns 48 percent of the social network’s holding company VK.Com Ltd. The legal proceedings were started in the British Virgin Islands against Durov and billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s Mail.ru Group Ltd (MAIL), which holds the remaining 52 percent of VK, according to a UCP statement today. The fund claimed that VK is the proper owner of the Telegram business.
Durov “has improperly diverted to himself corporate opportunities which he was duty bound to pursue, if at all, within the business of VK.Com,” UCP said in the statement.
The UCP even went so far as to acquire “three companies that manage certain aspects of telegram business” with the intent to transfer these companies to VK later: Telegram LLC, Digital Fortress and Pictograph for Axel Neff, according to Bloomberg.
the worst consequence would be a change to the Telegram name in the United States
Durov confirmed the acquisitions, and stated that UCP “unlawfully” gained access to American companies, which hold rights for the Telegram trademark on the U.S. territory, according to the report. Durov did say, however, that the Telegram team and other assets, including the tech and infrastructure, remain under his control. At this point, the worst consequence of the aforementioned acquisitions would be a change to the Telegram name in the United States.
Telegram recently surpassed 35 million users and is still growing daily as competition in the messaging space grows, with WhatsApp leading the way. Telegram can be downloaded for iOS and Android.