Name of Applicant: Joe L. White, Jr.
Date: July 01, 2025
Reference: Conciliation Request – Nexo AG, Canton of Zug
I am a 64-year-old U.S. citizen and technology executive. Over the course of my career, I worked tirelessly at multiple startups to build lasting financial security for myself and my family. In 2021, during a period of personal and professional burnout, I placed my trust in both Nexo’s public representations and in the global reputation of Swiss regulatory oversight. On that basis, I invested my generational wealth, approximately USD 3 million, into what I believed to be a safe, regulated digital asset platform located in Zug, Switzerland.
Nexo’s marketing explicitly framed its services as a secure, interest-bearing alternative to traditional banking, with references to Swiss compliance, insured custody, and credit-card-style protections. In the United States, leveraged investments require heightened disclosure and are unavailable through traditional banks. Nexo exploited this distinction targeting Americans by offering margin-based lending without appropriate warnings, disclaimers, or suitability safeguards in direct conflict with investor expectations shaped by both U.S. and Swiss financial norms.
Critically, at no point was I informed that my account operated as a margin-based leveraged structure. No loan-to-value ratio, liquidation threshold, or credit risk profile was ever disclosed to me during account creation or funding. I was never given a risk disclosure equivalent to what is required under both Swiss or U.S. financial regulations.
This concealment was especially harmful given my background. In my twenties, I served as the youngest branch manager of a U.S. brokerage firm during the 1987 market crash. I personally issued margin calls to clients and witnessed firsthand the destructive power of leverage. As a result, I developed a lifelong visceral and paralyzing fear of margin products and have actively avoided them my entire life. It is inconceivable that I would have knowingly placed my family’s future into such a risky investment.
During the bull market, my holdings more than doubled in value. But when the market turned, I was unaware that my investment was subject to margin liquidation.
Evidence will clearly show that I did not realize I was in a margin account because I did not exit my position before the downturn and no reasonable investor knowingly in a margin account would have behaved as I did.
After liquidation, Nexo compounded the harm through obstruction. I submitted lawful data access requests under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), but Nexo failed to produce full records.
The Nexo platform controls all historical log data, and the log data available for download post-liquidation is crippled, incomplete and worthless for rebuilding account history. To this day, I believe some or all of my account records have been lost, concealed, or mishandled either through technical negligence or intentional evasion.
The consequences have been devastating. I am now at retirement age but unable to retire with no income, no meaningful path to recovery, and no financial buffer. The loss has affected my physical and mental health, fractured important family relationships, and plunged me into a prolonged state of financial and emotional despair. What was once a safe retirement has become borrowed time until the inevitable.
This statement is not an appeal for sympathy. It is a request for accountability.
Swiss law is rooted in principles of good faith, proportionality, and fairness — as codified in the Swiss Code of Obligations (CO), the Unfair Competition Act (UCA), and the Financial Services Act (FinSA). Nexo AG’s conduct, in my view, violates all three by obscuring risk, evading regulatory clarity, and refusing to provide post-hoc transparency.
Accordingly, I respectfully request that this matter be resolved promptly and fairly during the conciliation process, without requiring extended litigation.
Switzerland has built its global reputation on protecting investors through powerful and effective oversight, but this hard-earned trust and integrity are now under threat.
Statement of Intent
This annex is submitted in support of a good-faith civil conciliation request under ZPO Art. 202–204. The claimant asserts that the conduct described herein warrants regulatory attention and damages due to misrepresentation and unsupervised financial intermediation. No proprietary platform information is disclosed, and all references are based on claimant usage, public materials, and industry guidelines.
Disclaimer
This document is submitted in good faith, based solely on the claimant’s personal experience and publicly available facts. No confidential or privileged information has been disclosed. All statements reflect the claimant’s beliefs or recollections unless otherwise indicated. Names of third parties are anonymized or redacted where not publicly implicated. The purpose of this release is transparency, accountability, and resolution not defamation or harm.
Legal Context Note
This annex was authored solely by the claimant as part of a lawful civil conciliation filing under Articles 202–204 of the Swiss Civil Procedure Code (ZPO). It does not contain any confidential statements made during the conciliation hearing, nor does it disclose settlement terms or other protected materials governed by ZPO Art. 205.
The annex is based exclusively on:
Personal experience,Publicly available information, orFacts the claimant is legally entitled to share.
Its purpose is to document the legal and factual basis for the claimant’s grievance, promote transparency, and serve the public interest where legal oversight may be insufficient.
The annex adheres to Swiss privacy and defamation standards under ZGB Art. 28, the Data Protection Act (DSG), and applicable banking/professional secrecy provisions (BankG, StGB Art. 321).
It is not an official court document, and no information disclosed herein was obtained through the hearing process.