Crypto Open Patent Alliance v Craig Steven Wright

The High Court’s equitable jurisdiction to grant injunctions is flexible and may develop to meet new circumstances, provided relief remains principled, proportionate and directed to preventing injustice. Injunctions may restrain vexatious or oppressive relitigation, including proceedings abroad, and may support a declaration of non-infringement. In assessing restrictions on expression, the court must apply the structured proportionality analysis required by Article 10 of the Convention. False claims receive little expressive weight, but the court must not seek to silence public discussion or erase historical statements. Mandatory deletion orders may be disproportionate where their scope is uncertain and burdensome.

The judgment concerned outstanding issues following the Joint Trial of the identity issue in the COPA and BTC Core Claims. The court had declared that Dr Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto, the author of the Bitcoin White Paper or the creator of Bitcoin. Dr Wright and related companies had discontinued the Coinbase, Kraken, Tulip Trading and BTC Core Claims. The court determined applications for injunctions, dissemination, costs, collateral use of documents, referral to the Crown Prosecution Service and the setting aside of orders obtained in the COBRA claim.

1. Injunction jurisdiction. The court possessed jurisdiction under section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 to grant the requested forms of relief. The equitable jurisdiction is not confined by historical categories. New forms of injunction may be developed where the underlying principles of equity require it to avoid injustice.
2. Relitigation and threats. The court granted injunctions preventing Dr Wright and his companies from commencing or procuring proceedings based on the rejected assertions concerning Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin authorship, intellectual property and goodwill. They were also restrained from explicitly or implicitly threatening such proceedings. The injunctions permitted defences, appeals, contempt proceedings, criminal proceedings and related preparatory steps, but not counterclaims based on the precluded grounds.
3. Further restraints. The court refused injunctions preventing assertion or publication of the underlying claims. The declarations and first two injunctions substantially protected the relevant interests. Although Dr Wright’s freedom to publish the false claims carried little weight, the court was not responsible for silencing public discussion or persuading everyone that its decision was correct. A further application for injunctive relief was permitted for two years.
4. Dissemination and deletion. A notice was ordered on Dr Wright’s website for six months and on his X/Twitter feed and Slack channels for three months. A newspaper advertisement was refused. A mandatory order requiring deletion of all relevant statements was disproportionate, uncertain and unnecessarily burdensome.
5. Fraudulent proceedings. The default judgment and other orders in the COBRA claim were set aside under CPR 13.3(1)(b), CPR 3.1(7) and/or the inherent jurisdiction because the claim was fraudulent. The BTC Core, Coinbase, Kraken and Tulip Trading claims, and Dr Wright’s defence to the COPA Claim, were certified as totally without merit. Relevant papers concerning Dr Wright and Mr Matthews were referred to the CPS.
6. Costs and documents. Indemnity costs and substantial interim payments were ordered. COPA and the Developers received general permission to review disclosed documents for specified future proceedings, but not blanket permission to use them. Further disclosure of funding arrangements was left to a possible application if costs remained unpaid.

The judgment followed the Joint Trial of the identity issue in the COPA and BTC Core Claims. The court had previously handed down its reasons in [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch). The present judgment determined consequential relief and outstanding issues.