- The British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been tasked with reviewing Craig Wright’s case and considering potential criminal charges
- Justice Mellor has agreed with COPA’s request to forward Wright’s case to the CPS for possible prosecution over perjury and document forgery
- Wright has been barred from litigating based on his Satoshi Nakamoto claim, but he’s still allowed to verbally assert this identity
The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is set to review the case of Satoshi Nakamoto pretender Craig Wright and will weigh up criminal charges against him. The judge in the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA) vs. Wright case, Justice Mellor, yesterday agreed with COPA’s request to send the case to the CPS “for consideration of whether a prosecution should be commenced against Dr Wright for his wholescale perjury and forgery of documents.” Wright was also prevented from litigating or re-litigating in any way based on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, although he isn’t barred from saying he is Satoshi.
COPA Defeat Leads to Injunctions
Wright lost his three-year legal battle against COPA in March when Justice Mellor ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto, did not create Bitcoin and was not the author of the Bitcoin whitepaper. A lengthy written ruling followed two months later, where Wright was found to have forged or doctored almost 500 pieces of evidence for the case, leaving Wright open to the possibility of criminal action against him.
This possibility came a step closer yesterday when Justice Mellor handed down a Form of Order in which he granted two of COPA’s injunctions against Wright:
- An injunction restraining Wright and his companies from commencing or procuring the commencement of proceedings (including counterclaims) related to his claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto or to have rights related to Bitcoin
- An injunction restraining Wright and his companies from threatening (explicitly or implicitly) or procuring others to threaten such proceedings.
Wright was also required to publish notices about the court’s findings on his website, Twitter/X accounts, and Slack channels for 3-6 months, with which Wright has already complied:
However, the court declined to grant further injunctions sought by COPA that would have restrained Wright from asserting he possesses rights related to Bitcoin/Satoshi Nakamoto, publishing statements claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, and deleting past publications claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto. This ruling was made under the assumption that no one except for Wright’s “disciples,” as Justice Mellor put it, would believe him if he claimed to be Satoshi anyway.
Ten-year Battle Ends in Defeat
The upshot of the ruling is that Wright’s ten-year claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, which started as a way of trying to rid himself of financially destructive ATO tax fraud penalties, is now officially over. Worse could follow, however, as Justice Mellor ruled that Wright “lied to the Court extensively and repeatedly” in his evidence and attempted to “create a false narrative by forging documents “on a grand scale” and presenting them in evidence.” As a result, Justice Mellor went nuclear:
In these circumstances, as set out in the whole of my Main COPA Judgment, I have no doubt that I should refer the relevant papers in this case to the CPS for consideration of whether a prosecution should be commenced against Dr Wright for his wholescale perjury and forgery of documents and/or whether a warrant for his arrest should be issued and/or whether his extradition should be sought from wherever he now is. All those matters are to be decided by the CPS.
The CPS will now review the case and decide whether it is in the public interest to start criminal proceedings against Wright. In the case of non-urgent matters this can take months or even years, leaving Wright on tenterhooks as to whether he will have to explain his forgeries in a criminal court.
Either way, Justice Mellor’s ruling closes a chapter on the Craig Wright saga and hopefully allows Bitcoin developers to work on the protocol free from fears of legal ramifications, as Satoshi intended.
