Pakistani startup founders acquitted of code theft charges

The founders of Investors Lounge who were arrested on accusation of stealing source code of a product were found innocent through the juristic prosecutions.

The legal proceedings, which were initiated against the accused found that the said charges couldn’t be proved owing to the lack of legal evidence. The case against Investors Lounge founders, Baqar Abbas Jafri, Sennen D’Souza, Hammad Ali Hashmi, and Waqar Ehsan, was hence, stalled by the judges, TechInAsia has reported.

The founders of Investor Lounge were alleged with charges of stealing the product source code from their previous employee company, AMZ MAK Capital. Mir Mohammad Ali Khan, CEO of AMZ MAK Capital, had filed a complaint against Investor Lounge, stating that its founders stole the code of Social Media platform which legally formed a property of AMZ MAK Capital. He said that the acquitted, who were once employed by AMZ MAK Capital, were asked to make a Social Media platform for investors. After the program was being made, the employees quit AMZ MAK Capital along with the concerned source code and founded their own company.

Baqar Abbas, a founding member of Investors Lounge, explicitly had mentioned that although negotiations were in process, no legal document was ever inked with AMZ MAK Capital on the said matter, TechInAsia quotes. Baqar said that the team withdrew owing to some uneasiness which prevailed in the working environment.

After the charges were raised, Jehan Ara, the then President at NEST I/O defended the accused saying,

“This is a false accusation. I know these youngsters personally and the product was created from scratch at The Nest i/o. It is heartbreaking and totally unjust that these young entrepreneurs who have struggled so much and worked so hard to get to this stage should be put through this. I stand by them.”

Investors Lounge is a startup incubated at the P@SHA’s startup incubation center, the NEST I/O, in the past. It, basically, is a socially media platform particularly for the investors and businessmen. The users can use this portal in order to view the latest updates in the market sector. The platform lists important data on stocks, and mutual funds etc, which is updated in real-time keeping in view the transitioning stock market trends. The startup also works on providing e-solutions as per any of the investors’ need.