In previous blogs, we have touched on cases involving Bitcoin, see here and here. The second of those previous blogs relates to a claim pursued in defamation by Dr Craig Wright, who claims to have invented Bitcoin under the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto.
It appears that Dr Wright has launched a number of cases involving his claims relating to him having invented Bitcoin, as a further judgment has come to light in the case of Wright v Persons Unknown.
Case background
That case relates to a claim by Dr Wright of Copyright Infringement in respect of a document titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” against the operators of a website, who was only known by the pseudonym “COBRA”, for publishing the document on its website.
It is clear from the judgment in that case that, save for filing a 4 page PDF in response to the allegations, Cobra did not actively take part in the proceedings, as no Acknowledgement of Service or Defence was filed, save that, during the remote hearing for the application by Dr Wright for default judgment, Cobra sent a message to the Court confirming “I don’t wish to speak. Everything I have said is within the email sent”. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that judgment in default was granted in favour of Dr Wright with costs.
An interesting feature of the costs assessment was that Cobra instructed Costs Draftsmen to represent it. In response to the Points of Dispute filed by Cobra, Dr Wright applied to have the Points of Dispute disregarded unless Cobra identified itself. At a hearing, the costs specialist that Cobra had instructed to represent it argued that there was no rule preventing anonymous or pseudonymous parties from taking part in costs proceedings.
In granting Dr Wright’s application, the costs judge stated that the:
‘[civil procedure] rules, taken as a whole, clearly expect a party to identify themselves at the outset of proceedings…it is plain that a party is expected to identify themselves when first actively involved in the proceedings. That requirement is clear from the rules concerning the commencement of a claim and the filing of a response to that claim’.
A requirement for a pseudonymised or anonymised Defendant to identify themselves is plainly a very powerful tool, as without such knowledge it will be nigh on impossible to enforce any judgment obtained.
Cobra has been given permission to appeal and so it will be interesting to see if the Court hearing the appeal upholds the decision.
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Kevin Modiri is a Partner in our expert Dispute Resolution team.
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