Last October, Micree Zhan was ousted from his post as CEO of Bitmain without any notice. Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu took his place again. In an attempt to regain control of the mining company and restore his position, Mikri Zhang filed several lawsuits in court, but the hearing scheduled for February 11 did not take place because of the pandemic.
As Dovey Wan, a partner at Primitive Ventures investment firm, tweeted, several masked people attacked Mikri Zhang in the Beijing Industrial and Commercial Administration building, where Zhang received a license to grant him the status of legal representative of the Beijing branch of Bitmain.
In the morning, a large group of people attacked Zhang, led by Liao Liu, having selected all the documents. Wang called this situation "a robbery in broad daylight" right in the office building. Liao Liu was arrested two hours after the attack. Davi Wang added that the "booth", located in the office building, was filmed on video, which is increasingly gaining popularity in the Chinese social network Weibo.
After this incident, Bitmain announced on WeChat that the employment contract with Mikri Zhang was terminated on October 28, 2019, and since then Zhang has not held any positions in the company. The current legal representative of the Beijing branch of Bitmain is Liao Liu. However, according to registration documents, Mikri Zhang still holds this position. Bitmain called this a “serious registration error” that violates corporate law.
According to Bitmain, Liu was appointed as the legal representative of the company by Jihan Wu this year. However, recently this appointment was rejected by the court after Zhang's petition filed in February, which allowed him to submit an application for registration as Bitmain's legal representative in order to act on behalf of the company.
In March, Mikri Zhang filed a lawsuit against Bitmain subsidiaries, for which the company categorically condemned Zhang's actions. Bitmain considered that Zhang deliberately ignores the interests of employees, filing lawsuits in the midst of a coronavirus in order to interfere with the normal operation of the company and its development.