ESEA agrees to $1m settlement

E-Sports Entertainment (ESEA) has agreed to a 1 million dollar settlement with the state of New Jersey over the bitcoin scandal that rocked the company earlier in the year.

Back in May, the eSports community learned that a bitcoin client had been coded into the ESEA client, which allowed the company to raise bitcoins, an online currency, when the users were not playing any game.

The complaint lodged by the Attorney General of New Jersey, together with the Division of Law and the Division of Consumer Affairs, also stated that this malicious code enabled ESEA to "monitor the computers" of 14,000 users in this state and across the United States.

It is estimated that during the time that this bitcoin client was operational, ESEA raised $3,602.21 through this illegal process.

With this deal, ESEA is obliged to play the state of New Jersey $325,000 with immediate effect. The remainder of the $1 million figure is suspensed for 10 years and will be cleared after this period, provided that the company avoids future violations of the law.

In a statement written by Eric "lpkane" Thunberg, the ESEA chief stressed that the company "does not agree with the Attorney General's account of the Bitcoin incident."

"The press release issued by the Attorney General about our settlement represents a deep misunderstanding of the facts of the case, the nature of our business, and the technology in question,” Thunberg notes.

Furthermore, ESEA has vowed to publish a statement in the coming weeks to provide "a detailed explanation" of the company’s policy, while revealing that the employee who was behind this incident was terminated.

"Additionally, regular audits will be conducted by a third party specialist in order to ensure that we maintain a secure environment and protect your privacy," Thunberg added.