The English High Court in Tulip Trading Limited v Bitcoin Association for BSV and others [2022] EWHC 668 (Ch) dealt with interesting cryptocurrency legal issues. This was against a backdrop of a hack resulting in a loss of control of US$4.5 billion in bitcoins.
The Singapore High Court case in CLM v CLN and others [2022] SGHC 46 is the first reported Singapore decision on the grant of an injunction against persons unknown to freeze cryptocurrency.
The court granted the injunction over the stolen cryptocurrency of approximately 109 bitcoins (BTC) (approximately more than RM17 million in value based on current price of 1 BTC to ~RM160,000) and 1,497 ether (ETH) tokens (approximately more than RM16 million in value based on current 1 ETH to ~RM11,000). Continue reading
In the English High Court case of Mr Dollar Bill Limited v Persons Unknown and two others [2021] EWHC 2718 (Ch), the Court granted a proprietary injunction against approximately 3.7 bitcoins (approximately GBP 105,000) and certain discovery orders against the two cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance and Huobi. Continue reading
The Hong Kong Court of First Instance in Yan Yu Ying v Leong Wing Hei [2021] HKCFI 3160 granted a temporary proprietary injunction to restrain 999 bitcoins (value close to US$50 million) being the subject matter of a dispute between the parties.
This case shows the consistent trend of Courts treating cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin as ‘property’ that can be subject to an injunction.
In this case, the Court granted what is known in Hong Kong as an “interim-interim injunction”. It is similar to what is known in Malaysia as an ad interim injunction. It is a temporary measure to balance the fairness before the full arguments are heard on whether to grant the full interim injunction. Interim-interim injunctions or reliefs are a very short-term stop-gap measure.
Lee Shih and Cheryl Yee write about the rise of cryptocurrency fraud and disputes.
With the rise in the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, there is also a significant rise in fraud and disputes relating to cryptocurrency. We highlight some of the recent legal developments.
