I Believe Exegy and Cooley LLP Offers Were Nothing But a Phantom Offer and Possibly Leading Me On
Feel free to email me at editor@exegy.today.
I have been doing some research on Google Gemini and learning more about these offers attorneys can send out and think it is interesting how attorneys feel they can stay protected behind them.
Some of the things I have come across are the following
When an attorney presents a settlement offer that does not actually exist or has no backing from their client—often to buy time, harass, or mislead a third party—it is generally referred to as "Bad Faith Negotiation" or "Sham Negotiation.”
Material Misrepresentation (Model Rule 4.1): Under the American Bar Association (ABA) Model Rules, attorneys are allowed to use "puffery" (e.g., "My client won't take a penny less than X"). However, they are strictly prohibited from lying about material facts, such as the existence of a settlement authority or a specific document that doesn't exist.
Tortious Interference: If the fake offer was designed to "lead on" a third party (like a creditor, a potential buyer of a business, or another litigant) and disrupts that third party's business dealings, it is called tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.
Abuse of Process: This applies if the fake offer was part of a legal strategy used for an improper purpose—such as dragging out litigation to bleed the other side dry financially, rather than to actually resolve the case.
Here is an interesting case in Florida about a “Phantom Offer” and I believe it clearly shows the same thing Cooley LLP was doing by making me an offer that is impossible to accept.
The "Phantom Offer" (Attorneys' Title Insurance Fund, Inc. v. Gorka):
- In Florida, the Supreme Court discussed the concept of a "phantom offer" in the context of settlement proposals. They found that a settlement offer conditioned in a way that made it impossible to actually accept (effectively a fake offer designed to trigger fee-shifting statutes) was invalid and unenforceable.
Cooley LLP was trying to do the same thing to me, because they knew the offer they were trying to push on me would keep my intellectual property safe from theft and the fact they would never respond to my requests for what posts needed to be removed or allow me to see any agreements that needed to be signed.
Emails between Kristen Mathews and I
You can clearly see in the following emails where I was corresponding with Kristen Mathews on this offer.
On Sun, Feb 23, 2025 at 11:30 AM I stated the following
- Though your current process for how you’re wanting to handle these disclosures does not keep my personal and intellectual property safe from theft, as Exegy could easily turn around and say they are not interested and privately open bugs on the issues in Jira. Which is a private and closed off system from the public, so I wouldn’t ever know.
She never replied back regarding it but tried pushing another offer with a different up front initial payment.
You can see that email from her on Feb 24, 2025 at 10:29 PM
- In the meantime, however, Exegy does want to prioritize your findings, and in recognition of your patience with this process, Exegy is willing to offer you an initial, upfront payment of $2,000 in exchange for a limited explanation from you regarding the potential vulnerabilities of Exegy’s system, as well as a confidentiality agreement.
I have already given Exegy a limited explanation of my disclosures previously, it seems like they wanted as much detail as possible about what it was regarding and by giving them that much information, a confidentiality agreement would not be efficient enough to keep my property safe or were there any terms in offer to safeguard my property.
Their attempts to push such an offer didn't stop here, on Mar 10, 2025 at 1:54 PM Robert “Bobby” Earles tried to push another offer that was completely different in a few ways.
Emails between Robert Earles and I
Robert Earles offer
Robert Earles was also trying to make it impossible for me to accept his offer, by removing the up front payment and not fully divulging what posts I need to take down and only specifying them by a date when LinkedIn doesn't give you this type of information on them.
He could have easily described those posts or sent copies of them with his offer, but for some reason he refrained from doing this.
You can see in his following letter be stated the following
- To be eligible for a bounty, Exegy does request that you remove your LinkedIn post of February 25, 2025. as well as your post of March 4, 2025.
I believe these are the following posts he was referring too
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SApndgjguw9NhZcGOWbgTcBHmhq5nCew/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k8kXxIjBauX_ciBzWN6D6F1R6S2eG7Bk/view?usp=drivesdk
You can clearly see in these posts, LinkedIn doesn't state any specific date on them. If the KnowBe4 post was one of the items they wanted to be removed from LinkedIn, they could have clearly stated they would like any entries regarding Exegy removed from it, since the post was not regarding them, but only included them.
On Mar 23, 2025 at 5:04 PM I responded back to the offer with the following question
- You also stated that I needed to remove the post on “February 25, 2025” and “March 4, 2025”, could you please give me details on what posts you are referring too? Also why would my post help support Exegy consideration with moving forward.
Cooley LLP never responded to this question, almost like they knew I knew I wouldn't go for this and made it seem like they wanted me to start removing posts to be eligible for a response, since Robert Earles stated the following on his offer “To be eligible for a bounty”.
The one thing you will notice is that a couple of these offers never specified any pricing terms or range, making it impossible for me to accept them.
Even though they stated an up front payment on a couple of them, it didn't consist of any terms on it.
They could have easily come back stating we found them of lower value of the up front payment and you owe us money.
They could have also stated to me they were not valid without proof requiring me to return that up front payment.
In an email to Kristen Mathews on Feb 23, 2025 at 11:30 AM, you can clearly see I sent her copies of other companies' bounty programs pay out ranges, but it seemed they ignored these.
These offers sent to me by Cooley LLP made me believe they truly were never real.
They could have sent me the confidentiality agreements to look over and be potentially signed if I agreed to it.
They were vague on the terms of them and could have responded to my requests for more of a description on items.
The offers didn't include any terms to keep my property safeguarded from being stolen.
They didn't add in any kind of range for the monetary payout if they were valid.
They didn't include any terms for the up front payment.
Never stated a turn around time when they would get back to me after evaluating my disclosures, meaning they could have spent months to years before returning to me.
I believe these offers were nothing but a phantom offer to lead me on and were never real. They were impossible to even accept as a true valid offer, since they don't meet the criteria of being a real valid offer.
On Apr 7, 2025 at 6:09 AM, you can clearly see in my emails to Robert Earles that I asked Cooley LLP “Is Exegy and Cooley LLP still handling all of this or are you leading me on?”, but they would never respond.
They also weaponized this offer in a lawsuit against me, making the courts believe they gave me a real and valid offer that I declined. I never once declined any offer until they would never respond to any of my questions regarding it and if they were leading me on.
You can clearly see in David Taylor notarized affidavit he tried to use these offers by Cooley LLP to make the company look better.
David Taylor notarized affidavit
Items the specified on his affidavit
36. Nonetheless, my colleagues and I took seriously the possibility of vulnerabilities in our systems. Exegy thus planned to offer Mr. Walters a payment after he had confidentially disclosed the vulnerability, and we had the chance to vet the claim. This planned structure—by which individuals submit reports to a company, who in turn review the report and offer a reward only if the report identifies a bona fide vulnerability—mirrors the approach of formal “bug bounty” programs that I understand to be used in the industry.
43. On February 13, 2025, we sent Mr. Walters an offer to discuss the alleged vulnerability and a possible bounty, regardless of our lack of a formal program. Mr. Walters, rather than work towards a compromise, claimed that our resistance to his own extortionate attempts somehow constituted extortion in turn.
45. Despite this, we continued to make reasonable efforts to resolve the situation with Mr. Walters, once again going above and beyond the industry standard to offer an upfront fee for information necessary to determine whether a vulnerability existed, with an additional reward, priced from the industry standard, contingent on those findings. I also expressed a willingness to create a formal “bug bounty” program.
You can also see they used these offers on a Memo in Support of TRO
You can see the Memo in Support of TRO here
One of the items they stated on it was
- To put the situation to rest and protect its network in the event there was some basis to Plaintiff’s claims, Exegy tried to mollify Defendant. On February 13, 2025, Exegy sent Defendant an offer to discuss the alleged vulnerability and a possible bounty, notwithstanding that Exegy had no formal bounty program. Id. at ¶ 43.
You can clearly see they tried to use these offer as a way to work out disclosing the vulnerabilities to make the company look better and never disclosing the facts above.
You will also see that they never stated to the court how they removed the up front fee and talk about each of the different offers they tried to give me and made it seem like there was only one offer.
Things I do wonder what this offer
Were they leading me on and making it impossible to accept it so they can tell their customers they could not work out a deal
Were they leading me on for some other reason
Were they hoping to lock me into it to steal my property, but knew that wouldn't be possible, since I pointed that out.
Was they always planning to sue me and use this offer as a way to make them look like they tried to make an offer? This actually eventually did this as seen in the lawsuit.
They did eventually try a different tactic by stating there would now be a bounty program that would be up Q3 and they would never return any response about if this happened.
It does make me wonder what they have said to their customers about all of this and what kinds of things have they communicated if thry have.
You can see here in the following emails I asked about the Q4 bounty program in Q3 but never received a response.
A couple of other interesting cases regarding this matter, that could potentially be a result of this offer.
State Farm Florida Ins. Co. v. Laughlin-Alonso (Florida Appellate Court)
- The "Sham" Offer: State Farm offered a nominal amount ($250) to settle a substantial homeowner's insurance claim. The plaintiff argued this was a bad-faith "sham" offer made solely to set up a claim for attorney's fees later.
The offer from Exegy and Cooley LLP did not consist of any terms about disclosing my findings to them. They could have easily felt like I violated some contract by knowing this information and filed a fictitious civil lawsuit against me.
Dryden v. Pedemonti (Florida Appellate Court)
The "Sham" Offer: The defendant made an offer that required the plaintiff to execute a "full and complete release and satisfaction," but the attorney did not attach the release or summarize its specific terms.
Why it was Invalid: The court struck the offer down as a "phantom" offer because the plaintiff could not know what rights they were giving up. The court ruled that the burden of clarifying the terms cannot be placed on the party receiving the offer.
There was never any terms or confidentiality agreement for me to see what rights I could have been signing away.
Summary of Tactics to Watch For
If you are looking for case law regarding a specific type of "sham" offer, look for these keywords in your jurisdiction:
"Illusory Promise": An offer where the offeror retains an "out" or the benefit is vague.
"Conditioned on Mutual Acceptance": The specific Gorka defect.
"Patent Ambiguity": When the terms (like a release) are missing or unclear.
"Bad Faith Nominal Offer": An offer of $1-$100 made when there is clear liability.
Updated on 11/282025 @ 4:44PM
● Added more details and fixed some spelling issues.
