Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

Even though I'm not a huge Greenspan fan (are there any?), I find this money transmitter stuff incredibly fascinating. I haven't reviewed the relevant legal code, but I strongly suspect that Greenspan is right in that:

(1) there are lots of little annoying laws related to money transmitters that makes it very difficult to get new payment stuff off the ground

(2) If you have deep pockets and good lawyers you can pretty much ignore these laws

I strongly suspect that the correct solution is to change the laws, but that this is also an even greater pain in the ass than protecting yourself with highly paid lawyers, esp. since relevant laws vary significantly from state to state. What exactly Greenspan is attempting to prove here is beyond me, but I'm still quite curious as to the results.

Some context:

(1) Think Computer Corporation built FaceCash (https://www.facecash.com/) a mobile payment solution

(2) Aaron Greenspan is Think's President and CEO

Maybe he's trying to get these companies to lobby against "money transmitter" regulation.

From reading the complaint, it seems more likely that the expected result here is something like:

* State is forced to fairly enforce the rules that caused Think Computer so much trouble (re money transmitter regulations)

* Fairly enforcing the rules causes incredible amounts of grief & overhead for companies large enough to comply, and drives smaller companies out of business

* The grief drives those larger companies (and investors into the smaller companies) to push for these laws to actually get fixed

I could see there also being an interest here in having investors be penalized for knowingly investing in companies that were violating the law (having a board seat seems like it would give you enough access to realize that a portfolio company is a money transmitter and be able to ask them whether they're licensed).

He's suing them for "unfair competition", because none of them have an MTA license, yet are still operating. As far as I can tell!

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&#3...