U.S. Judge Delays Aave's $71M Stolen ETH Unfreezing Hearing to June 5

According to BlockBeats, on May 14, U.S. Judge Margaret M. Garnett delayed a ruling on Aave’s emergency application to unfreeze $71 million in ETH stolen in the Kelp DAO hack. The court required both parties to submit supplemental briefs before a June 5 hearing. Law firm Gerstein Harrow LLP had filed a restraining order in early May claiming its client holds rights to the frozen funds.

Judge Garnett stated that Aave failed to adequately explain how users would suffer “compounding losses” if the freeze remained, but acknowledged the case’s complexity and victim risks. She ordered both sides to address six key issues by May 22, including whether the hack falls under New York’s shelter principle, legal distinctions between fraud and theft, the hacker’s rights to stolen assets, applicable law for determining priority, whether a constructive trust is appropriate, and how to identify and proportionally return assets to individual victims.