Yes and No,
Phoenix started out under APB Emu, since both groups used to reverse engineer the game,
However, what later became Phoenix, wasn't the same people who did Emu.
So saying that its the same people is false, they were both separate groups run by separate people from the beginning.
Additionally, as stated before,
Phoenix doesn't use any of APB's assets, there's even been an open discussion with LO about the project where they received access to verify this fact for themselves.
If Phoenix were to use apb's assets, it would've already been dead by now, but it doesn't. It's its own thing.