Judge ends a man’s 11-year quest to recoup $765 million in Bitcoin by digging up a landfill
A British judge has ruled against a man seeking to dig up a landfill where he says a hard drive containing access to thousands of Bitcoins was accidentally dumped more than 11 years ago.
Since 2013, James Howells has hoped to recover a laptop hard drive that he says contains the private key to the cryptocurrency he says he mined in 2009. Ars wrote about it at the time: note down that the value of one Bitcoin just exceeded $1,000, making 7,500 Bitcoins worth $7.5 million.
The alleged number of Bitcoins has changed somewhat, with Howells now saying he lost 8,000 Bitcoins. The Bitcoin price Exceeded $100,000 last month and was at $95,636, or $765 million for 8,000 bitcoins, as of last Friday.
Supreme Court Justice Keyser KC issued his ruling Verdict Last week I sided with the defendant Howells v. Newport City Council. The judge ruled that Howells had no realistic chance of success in the trial. Howells sought “an order that the defendant either deliver the hard drive or allow his team of experts to excavate the landfill to find it, and (as an alternative) compensation equal to the value of the Bitcoin he no longer has access to.” ”
The landfill authority owns the waste
The council said digging up the landfill would release harmful substances into the environment and would expose residents to “potentially serious risks, posing public health issues and environmental concerns”, the ruling said.
The judge found no “reasonable grounds to bring this case” and said there was “no realistic prospect of success if it went to trial and there was no other compelling reason why it should be dismissed at trial,” he issued granted summary judgment to the defendant and dismissed the lawsuit.
The ruling cites the Control of Pollution Act of 1974, which states that “anything given to the Authority by any other person in the course of the use of the facilities shall be the property of the Authority and may be dealt with accordingly.” Howells “submitted, that Section 14(6)(c) merely states that anything so supplied shall belong to the Authority but does not say that it ceases to belong to its former owner,” the judgment said. The judge disagreed, writing that “the words ‘shall belong to the authority’ are unqualified and unqualified.”
The judge found no reason to find that the defendant’s retention of the hard drive was legally “unconscionable.” “In my opinion, there is no realistic prospect of a finding that the defendant’s retention of the hard drive was unlawful. The defendant did not keep it for profit or because he wanted it. It was preserved because it was buried in a landfill,” the ruling said.
Limitation period
The lawsuit is also barred by the six-year statute of limitations because Howells “knew the facts material to its lawsuit by November 2013 but did not initiate the proceedings until May 2024,” the ruling says.
The judge did not have to rule on whether the hard drive actually contains access to Bitcoin, as “the only relevant issues in this case concern ownership of the hard drive and the rights to access it.” Howells applied for access to the landfill in Newport, Wales, starting in November 2013. but local officials refused. He says the hard drive is 2½ inches in size and has a wallet.dat file with a private key that can allow access to the Bitcoin.
The council said the excavation would breach the conditions of its license with NRW (Natural Resources Body for Wales), create health and safety risks for staff, result in damage from ground movement during or after the excavation work and prevent the council from “to relieve”. ) The legally required waste disposal takes place during the excavation work.”
