The self-described founder of the digital currency Bitcoin will not have to pay tens of billions of dollars to the estate of a former associate as a result of a recent Miami jury trial that sorted out intellectual property claims.
A federal jury in the Southern District of Florida, however, did award one of the plaintiffs, W&K Information Defense Research LLC, $100 million in compensation. The defendant in the case, Australian computer scientist Craig Wright, was found to have converted some of the company’s intellectual property for his own use and was thus liable for that amount.
The plaintiffs alleged that W&K was a joint venture of Wright and the late David Kleiman, whose brother, Ira Keiman, filed the lawsuit claiming that David Kleiman worked with Wright to develop the so-called cryptocurrency and deserved compensation for his contributions. The jury’s verdict on Dec. 6, however, provided no economic or punitive damages directly to the estate.
But the attorneys for W&K said the verdict does vindicate some of the concerns outlined in the lawsuit and will ensure that the estate receives some benefits.
“We are immensely gratified that our client, W&K Information Defense Research LLC, has won $100,000,000, reflecting that Craig Wright wrongfully took bitcoin-related assets from W&K,” attorneys Vel Freedman and Kyle Roche said in an email to the Florida Record. “Many years ago, Craig Wright told the Kleiman family that he and Dave Kleiman developed revolutionary Bitcoin-based intellectual property. Despite those admissions, Wright refused to give the Kleimans their fair share of what Dave helped create and instead took those assets for himself.”
The verdict amounts to a historical precedent for the digital currency industry and the so-called blockchain technology that underpins it, according to the attorneys.
“Our firms, Roche Freedman and Boies Schiller Flexner, are honored they represented the plaintiffs, protected Dave Kleiman’s legacy and ensured his family receives the benefits of his labor,” they said.
Had the jury accepted all of the plaintiffs’ claims about David Kleiman’s role in the development of Bitcoin, the estate might have obtained half of the 1.1 million bitcoin amassed in transactions Wright carried out during the inception of the currency. Today, 1.1 million bitcoin equals about $51.4 billion
Bitcoin is a decentralized global currency that is not controlled by any specific bank or nation. Transactions are verified through publicly recorded ledgers, or blockchains, recorded by users’ computers worldwide.
Rivero Mestre, Wright’s attorney, expressed satisfaction after a week of jury deliberation in the case. In Mestre’s view, the jury ruled Wright was not business partners with David Kleiman and that Kleiman’s estate is not entitled to the multibillion-dollar Bitcoin fortune.