Star Citizen

Derek Smart gets response from RSI over legal action and other drama

Hull_A_Final

After Derek Smart leveled legal threats at RSI over the funding drama involving Star Citizen, RSI has responded.

For a quick summary, A letter was sent to RSI which demanded forensic accounting of the Star Citizen project along with a completion date and refunds for backers unhappy with the progress of development.

The response from the dev team came as expected, a complete rebuttal. Part of the response to the demand letter which was penned by RSI’s Founder, Vice Chairmain and General Counsel Ortwin Freyermuth, has been shared by Smart. It reads as follows:

“Your client’s defamatory claims are entirely without merit and include unfounded allegations that the funds raised for the project were used improperly, even fraudulently. In this vain, your client is now asking for a “forensic accounting” to be made available to him. Firstly, there is obviously no legal basis for your client’s request and your letter cites no such authority. Secondly, the ample information provided regularly on our extensive website, including monthly progress reports from each studio, published headcounts and the like, would enable any person familiar with the cost of game development to assess the proper spending of the funds raised. Your client claims to be such an experienced person, so we are a bit perplexed about this demand coming in particular from him.

“In sum, your client’s allegations and demands are completely without basis and hereby rejected in their entirety.”

So that’s that. For now at least. This initial demand letter and response will likely kick things up a gear as Derek Smart explains in a comment update on the above statement.

“And we’re happy that their statement appears in the letter because they’re basically saying that everything is on the up and up, and that they have **NEVER** used public **crowd-funded** money for **ANYTHING**other than the Star Citizen project.

“If you knew what we knew, or the sourced data we have access to, you would probably be as thrilled by this statement in the letter.”

This dance of threat and response will likely continue for some time as Smart continues to apply pressure and push his agenda. Though it seems very likely that at some point RSI will get fed up and either thoroughly destroy Smart’s claims or ignore the feckless posturing.

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