Bitcoin company Swan filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, accusing its former employees of conspiring with Tether to steal its multi-billion dollar Bitcoin mining business. Swan claims that these former employees stole the company's highly proprietary Bitcoin mining monitoring software code, suppliers and business partner resources, and collectively resigned to establish a competing company called Proton Management. The lawsuit alleges that Tether played an important role in this conspiracy and issued a "notice of breach of contract" to Swan to provide "legal cover" for this hostile takeover. Swan asked the court to issue a permanent injunction against Proton to prevent it from further interfering with Swan's mining business, and to require former employees to return stolen equipment and "confidential materials." Swan has requested a jury trial, and the specific amount of damages will be determined at the trial.