The High Court of the United Kingdom has issued a World Freezing Order against the assets of Craig Wright, a computer scientist and businessman, according to legal documents filed on July 5.
The order was issued to assist Peter McCormack, a podcast host and entrepreneur, who was sued for libel by Wright in 2019, in recovering approximately 1.5 million British pounds ($1.9 million) in legal fees.
Cointelegraph attempted to contact McCormack for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The first page of the World Freezing Order against Craig Wright. Source: United Kingdom National Archives
Craig Wright v. Peter McCormack
The legal dispute between Wright and McCormack originated from remarks made by McCormack in several tweets and a YouTube video, where he accused Wright of falsely claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin (BTC).
In response to McCormack’s statements, Wright filed a lawsuit against the podcaster, alleging defamation of character.
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Court rules Wright is not Satoshi
Wright began asserting himself as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2016 and used this assertion as the basis for lawsuits against 13 Bitcoin Core developers. The Australian computer scientist argued that the developers infringed on his copyrights related to the Bitcoin white paper and certain aspects of the decentralized protocol, such as Bitcoin’s database.
The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a consortium including several defendants named in Wright’s lawsuit, presented over 50 pieces of evidence, accusing Wright of fabricating documents. COPA’s lawyers argued in their closing statements, “He [Wright] has concocted an entire personal history, producing one batch of forged documents after another to support it.”
After reviewing the evidence, the court determined that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto, thereby concluding the intellectual property dispute that could have had significant implications for the entire Bitcoin community.
Judge James Mellor’s pivotal ruling definitively established that Wright’s claims of being the Bitcoin inventor were unfounded, clearing McCormack of defamation charges and affirming his right to seek legal reimbursement.
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