An Australian computer scientist who claimed he invented bitcoin was on Friday accused of contempt of court after he filed a 911 billion-pound ($1.18 trillion) lawsuit against Twitter founder Jack Dorsey‘s payments firm Block in Britain.
Craig Wright claimed to have been the author of the foundational text of bitcoin published under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto”. But a court found that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Wright did not write the 2008 text.
The Crypto Open Patent Alliance took legal action against Wright to stop him suing bitcoin developers. After a trial at London’s High Court, a judge said in a written ruling in May that Wright lied “extensively and repeatedly” and forged documents “on a grand scale”.
The judge in July referred Wright to Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service to consider whether he should be prosecuted for perjury. He also made an injunction preventing Wright from bringing any litigation on the basis of his claim to be Satoshi.
Wright is appealing against the ruling and a decision on whether he can bring an appeal has not yet been made. He denied forging documents when he gave evidence in February.
COPA’s lawyer Jonathan Hough said at a preliminary hearing on Friday that Wright was in breach of the injunction having filed a lawsuit against Square Up Europe Limited, which is ultimately owned by Block, earlier this month.
Wright was not legally represented and appeared at the hearing by videolink from Singapore, Hough said.
“I do not believe I am in contempt,” Wright said. He added that, if he was found to be in contempt of court, he was willing to amend his lawsuit to make clear the case had “nothing to do with the ownership of the creation of the system”.
A hearing to determine whether Wright is in contempt will be heard in December. Wright’s lawsuit against Block was put on hold in the meantime.
(This Nov. 1 story has been corrected to change the figure to 911 billion, not 911 million, in the headline and paragraph 1)
—Sam Tobin, Reuters
Войдите, чтобы добавить комментарий
Другие сообщения в этой группе
Sudden equipment failures. Supply chain surprises. Retaining staff as the goalposts move in real time. These aren’t challenges I’ve faced as a tech founder—but I have faced them running restaurant
Amazon recently announced that it had deployed its one-millionth robot across its work
On this week’s Most Innovative Companies podcast, Cloudflare COO Michelle Zatlyn talks with Fast Company staff writer David Salazar about hitting $1B in revenue and going global, as well as
If you’ve built an audience around documenting your 9-to-5 online, what happens after you hand in your notice?
That’s the conundrum facing Connor Hubbard, aka “hubs.life,” a creator who
OpenAI should continue to be
WhatsApp should prepare to leave the Russian market, a lawmaker who regulates the IT sector
This is an edition of Plugged In, a weekly newsletter by Fast Company global technology editor Harry McCracken. You can sign up to receive it each Friday and read all issues
