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Appeals court overturns ruling on unfreezing MegaUpload founder’s assets

By | Published on Thursday 21 August 2014

Kim Dotcom

Kim Dotcom’s assets will remain frozen until at least April next year, after an appeals court ruling overturned an earlier decision by New Zealand’s High Court.

As previously reported, Dotcom’s assets were seized after MegaUpload was taken down in January 2012. The orders granting the seizures, issued by a US court and approved in New Zealand, expired in April. An application to extend them was turned down by the High Court in the latter. Although Dotcom was initially optimistic that he would now be reunited with his property and finances, the prosecutors appealed the decision shortly afterwards.

And that early optimism was gone ahead of the ruling this morning, with Dotcom tweeting before the decision: “I wonder how much respect Auckland High Court judges have for the appeal judges in Wellington. Almost all rulings in my case were overturned”.

The appeals court extended the asset freezing orders by one year from their expiration date to 18 Apr 2015. This date may or may not fall after Dotcom’s long-delayed extradition hearing, in which the US will try to force the former MegaUpload chief to face charges in the American courts, and which is currently scheduled to take place in February.



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