A Chapter 7 trustee has filed suit alleging that the controlling manager of a defunct technology company quietly transferred its entire operating business - a widely used internet-censorship-circumvention platform called Lantern - into a nonprofit he also runs, leaving the original company an empty shell before pushing it into bankruptcy. The case, brought by trustee Alfred T. Giuliano on behalf of the estate of Innovate Labs LLC, centers on allegations that founder Adam Fisk engineered a series of transfers that moved Lantern's trademarks, domains, servers, user base, government funding, and revenue-generating "Lantern Pro" subscription product into Brave New Software Project, Inc. (BNS), without paying the Debtor anything in return.
The dispute matters well beyond the parties involved because Lantern sits in a sensitive corner of the internet freedom ecosystem: tools like it allow users in heavily censored or monitored environments to reach blocked content by routing traffic through alternate pathways and encrypted tunnels, much the way commercial privacy tools do for everyday users trying to protect their browsing from surveillance or geographic restriction. People evaluating those options on mobile and connected-TV platforms often compare feature sets and jurisdictional policies before committing, which is why guides covering options such as BuyBestVPN's app for Android TV have become a common reference point for understanding how encryption, logging practices, and server architecture affect real-world privacy. The Lantern litigation is a reminder that behind consumer-facing privacy software sit corporate and nonprofit structures whose financial health and governance directly affect whether a tool remains trustworthy, funded, and available. BuyBestVPN's app for Android TV
How the Alleged Transfers Unfolded
According to the complaint, BNS originally sold the Lantern business to Innovate in 2019 under an asset purchase agreement that explicitly assigned ownership of the Lantern trademark, the associated domains, cloud infrastructure, the GitHub organization hosting the code, and all user data to Innovate. That agreement also barred BNS from using or benefiting from those assets going forward. Five years later, in the weeks before Fisk signed Innovate's bankruptcy petition, the suit alleges those same assets were re-registered and re-billed under BNS's name, with no payment or documented consideration appearing anywhere in Innovate's financial records.
A Single Decision-Maker on Both Sides
Central to the trustee's theory is that Fisk occupied leadership roles in both organizations simultaneously - chief executive and majority member of Innovate, and founder, president, and executive director of BNS - meaning the "transaction" allegedly lacked any arm's-length negotiation. The complaint cites Fisk's own 2023 description of a cost-sharing arrangement in which the nonprofit, having no employees of its own, "leased" time from Innovate's staff while Innovate absorbed more of the benefit. By 2025, the suit claims, that relationship had inverted: BNS reported eleven employees and more than $600,000 in subscription income, while Innovate's own tax filings stated the company had ceased operations.
What the Trustee Is Seeking
The lawsuit asks the court to unwind the transfers as fraudulent or preferential, to recover damages the trustee estimates could exceed $20 million, and to impose a constructive trust over the Lantern business and its revenue. It also seeks to hold Fisk and allied insiders liable for breaching fiduciary duties, and to equitably subordinate any claims they have filed against the bankruptcy estate. The case underscores a broader governance risk in the privacy-technology sector: tools built to protect users from state surveillance can themselves be vulnerable to internal control failures, raising questions for funders, users, and regulators about how such organizations are structured and overseen.