Ondo Finance, one of the largest issuers of tokenized US Treasuries and equities, is now the subject of a Delaware Chancery Court fight over who legally runs the company. Kathleen Allman, mother of late founder Nathan Allman, has filed suit against Ian De Bode, the executive who took over as chief executive after Allman's death in May, alleging De Bode seized control of the firm during a gap in its governance and needs to be removed.
The Block first reported the filing on August 6, and CoinDesk followed with additional detail from the same Delaware Chancery Court documents the same day.
Nathan Allman died unexpectedly in late May at age 32. Ondo did not disclose a cause of death at the time, and the court filings, which are public but redacted in places, still don't name one. Neither do they state the size of the equity stake at the center of the dispute.
According to the complaint, Allman held three roles when he died: CEO, sole director, and controlling shareholder. Ondo's board had two seats, one occupied by Allman and the other vacant. His death left the company with no sitting director able to appoint a successor or call a board meeting, and his voting shares passed into his estate, where no one held the authority to vote them.
That gap lasted a month. A Hawaii probate court appointed Kathleen Allman personal representative of her son's estate on June 26, giving her the voting rights tied to his shares.
The complaint says De Bode moved during the interim period, declaring that Ondo's bylaws made him CEO automatically and using a shareholder agreement to name himself sole director. From there, he began hiring advisors, approving compensation, and moving to add another board member, according to the filing. Allman's estate argues that under the company's charter, filling a CEO vacancy required a board vote — one that never happened — which would make De Bode's appointment, and everything that followed from it, invalid.
It also accuses De Bode of using company resources to pressure Kathleen Allman, described in the filing as having been affectionately known inside Ondo as "Mama Ondo," into signing documents that would have cemented his authority, and says the company refused to hand over a list of shareholders and their contact details.
Once she held voting control, Kathleen Allman initially tried to work with De Bode rather than remove him outright. She joined the board, put in place an interim policy to keep the business running, and confirmed De Bode as president — a step below CEO — while requesting basic corporate records.
That approach broke down when De Bode and Ondo's outside counsel declined to recognize her actions or produce the records, according to the filings. Allman then expanded the board from two seats to four, appointing Gordon Liao and Tahnee Towill, Nathan Allman's sister and a Hawaii-based executive recruiter. Liao turned down the seat for reasons unrelated to the dispute, but Towill accepted, giving Allman a second vote on the board.
On July 24, Allman and Towill voted to remove De Bode from every position at the company, including president. The same day, Allman named herself board chair, CEO, secretary, and treasurer.
The estate's filings frame her leadership as a caretaker arrangement, not a permanent claim on the company, and say the goal is to keep Ondo running while the board searches for a long-term successor to Nathan Allman. The three filings ask the court to rule on who legally controls Ondo and to block any extraordinary corporate action — new share issuances, major contracts, unusual spending — until that question is settled. The estate is asking for an expedited hearing, arguing that continued uncertainty puts the validity of Ondo's ordinary business decisions at risk.
De Bode disputes the estate's account. In emailed comments to The Block and CoinDesk, he called Kathleen Allman's claims "meritless" and said Ondo retains the backing of its lead investors and the Ondo Foundation. He also called the decision to sue "regretful," arguing it works against the interests of the company, its shareholders, staff, and the wider Ondo community, and said the board has tried to work constructively with the estate.
Ondo's board, in a separate statement, said it remains focused on serving customers without disruption while it searches for Allman's successor.
None of the allegations have been tested in court. The filings reflect only the estate's version of events, and a judge has not yet ruled on any of the claims.
Ondo, founded by Allman in 2021 after he left Goldman Sachs' digital assets team, has built its business on tokenizing US Treasuries, equities, and ETFs through products including USDY, OUSG, and Ondo Global Markets. Its backers include Founders Fund, Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, and Wintermute, and its governance token carries a market value in the billions.
The lawsuit lands in the middle of an active stretch for the company. Days before the filing became public, Ondo announced the hire of Adam Schlisman, a former Blockchain.com executive, as chief financial officer. The firm has also been pushing into new territory this year, including a private execution layer called the Ondo Network , US broker-dealer approvals for its Oasis Pro Markets subsidiary, and a tokenization partnership with Japan's SBI Group — all while the RWA sector it competes in has been growing quickly against a broader slowdown in DeFi activity, according to a recent CoinShares report.
For institutional counterparties and competitors watching the tokenization space, the immediate question is narrower than the court fight itself: who has the authority to sign off on Ondo's contracts, partnerships, and product decisions while this is unresolved.
