Craig Wright’s appeal dismissed, lawsuit against Hodlonaut to continue in Norwegian court 🚨 This article is 5 years old...
Craig Wright’s appeal dismissed, lawsuit against Hodlonaut to continue in Norwegian court
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Updated: Jun. 8, 2020 at 6:56 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
The Norwegian Court of Appeals has dismissed Craig Wright’s appeal against the decision made in January, which stated that Norway had jurisdiction against his case with Hodlonaut. Wright sued the anonymous Twitter analyst for defamation last year, but the case got dismissed in a U.K. court due to a lack of jurisdiction.
Norwegian court rules it has jurisdiction in Wright’s case against Hodlonaut
Hodlonaut, a prominent figure in the crypto sphere, has claimed another small victory in his long and tiring legal battle with Craig Wright, the chief scientist at nChain. The self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin sued Hodlonaut for defamation after the anonymous analyst called him a fraud on Twitter.
After a U.K. High Court ruled in January that the country didn’t have jurisdiction over the matter, as Hodlonaut was a Norwegian citizen, the case was set to continue in Norway.
And now, the Norwegian Court of Appeals handed down judgment on Craig Wright’s appeal on the decision made by the U.K. court. The appeal, according to Hodlonaut, was denied.
The court ruled that Norway did, in fact, have jurisdiction over the matter, and ordered Wright to pay all costs incurred by Hodlonaut both at the District Court and the Norwegian Court of Appeals.
This, however, doesn’t mean the case is closed.
A small victory for Hodlonaut, but the worst is yet to come
The decision made by the court regarded only the matter of jurisdiction, which means that the actual case is yet to begin.
“Not even close to closing the chapter yet though. This was only about whether or not Norway has jurisdiction,” Hodlonaut wrote on Twitter, adding that he expects Wright to appeal this decision even further, possibly taking it as high as the Supreme Court.
He believes that Wright will do whatever is necessary to avoid the lawsuit taking place in Norway, focusing all efforts on bringing the case back to the U.K. Many believe that the U.K.’s loose laws on what constitutes defamation is what is behind Wright’s tactics.
As CryptoSlate covered earlier this year, Craig Wright is yet to win a court case, despite being involved in at least a dozen libel and defamation lawsuits in the past couple of years alone.
Apart from his ongoing saga with the estate of his former partner Dave Kleiman, Wright has taken several high-profile figures from the crypto industry to court. Last year, Wright’s case against Bitcoin Cash advocate Roger Ver, whom he sued for defamation, was also dismissed by the High Court. At the time, Judge Sir Matthew Nicklin said that the case was “weak” and “inappropriate.”
Peter McCormack, the host of “What Bitcoin Did” podcast, was also among the many recipients of Wright’s libel lawsuits. The case is still ongoing.
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Bitcoin SV is a full-node implementation for Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
Craig Steven Wright, commonly referred to as CSW, is an Australian computer scientist and business professional who has been at the center of controversy within the cryptocurrency community.