The Rozenberg case
Anton Rozenberg, a disgruntled employee locked in a legal fight with his ex-employer, made some sensationalist statements in September. He claimed that he was a "senior tech lead at Telegram" and "Pavel Durov was suing him for 100 million rubles".
As the story unfolded in the Russian media, it turned out that Rozenberg was lying.
What is Telegraf LLC?
Telegraf LLC from St.Petersburg was one of Pavel Durov's old companies that he used when he still lived in Russia. Some Telegram developers worked there in Telegram's pre-launch days. After Durov was ousted from VK and left Russia at the time Internet regulations became obscene, the company was abandoned. No members of the core Telegram team have been employed there since February 2014.
Read more about Telegraf LLC's history here
In 2016, as Telegram popularity grew in Russia and the CIS, we began outsourcing spam-related activities (checking spam reports from Russian and Middle-Eastern users) to a company using Telegraf's old shell. It hired several ex-Vkontakte people to work as moderators.
Who is Mr. Rozenberg?
Anton Rozenberg worked for Telegram's contractor Telegraf LLC since June 2016 along with several other ex-VK employees. His function was to provide technical aid for processing spam reports that were outsourced to the company. He had never worked for "Telegram," let alone as a "tech lead" as he later claimed.
What did he do?
In spring 2017, Rozenberg stopped showing up for work and was dismissed from Telegraf LLC. He filed a lawsuit and offered Telegraf LLC to settle it in exchange for a favorable recommendation letter and the sum of 30 million rubles (the equivalent of his salary for 12 years). To back up his demands, he also threatened the company with a breach of NDA should it not accept his terms. By way of a demonstration, Rozenberg began telling people that he "worked for Telegram."
What did Telegram do?
In Russia, for an organization to be known to be associated with Telegram even in such a harmless way could mean trouble with the authorities for its accounts and employees.
When the blackmail situation escalated in July 2017 amidst calls from the Russian government to block the messenger, Telegram severed the contract with Telegraf LLC. We did not want to put the LLC's employees in danger with the authorities, should they be thought to be representing Telegram. We no longer have any connections to the company.
What did Telegraf LLC do?
Having lost the contract with Telegram, Telegraf LLC had to let go of all its employees. In August 2017 it filed a counter-lawsuit for the sum of 100 million rubles against Mr. Rozenberg whose contract included financial responsibility for any losses occurring as a result of breaches of the Non-Disclosure Agreement.
After Rozenberg's blackmail gamble had failed, he went much further than simply breaching the NDA and disclosing that a contract existed between Telegraf LLC and Telegram. In September he published a story claiming that all of Telegram's developers worked from St. Petersburg, as well as other wild accusations for which he didn't provide any evidence.
Alexander Stepanov, Telegraf LLC's CEO and last remaining employee, has published extensive evidence documenting Rozenberg's lies.
How did it end?
Alexander Stepanov said that he perceived the chances for fully recovering the losses incurred by Rozenberg as slim given the legal situation in Russia. Telegraf LLC offered Rozenberg to settle both cases out of court so that the company that had lost its business and let go of all employees could close down. This offer was made before Rozenberg went public and even included a compensation (although nothing on the scale of salaries for 12 years).
After a month of trying to alter his story to fit the emerging facts and pass as a victim, Rozenberg finally realized that he wasn't getting anywhere and accepted the settlement.
We hope that one day respect for privacy and rule of law in Russia will rise to a sufficient level for us to be able to work with Russian companies.