This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Digital Legal MegaUpload Timeline
Mega chief also plans to sue Hong Kong
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 25 March 2013
Because ongoing legal squabbles with just two governments simply aren’t enough for one man, MegaUpload founder Kim ‘Dotcom’ Schmitz is reportedly now planning to sue the authorities in Hong Kong too.
Dotcom, of course, is currently battling efforts by the US government to extradite him from New Zealand to face charges of money laundering, racketeering and copyright infringement in relation to the now defunct MegaUpload business.
Meanwhile the Mega chief has accused the American government of acting unlawfully when it shut down the mainly US-based servers of his former business in January 2012, and concurrently requested that New Zealand police raid Dotcom’s home and that the authorities in Hong Kong raid the MegaUpload offices and freeze the company’s many assets in the Chinese special administrative region.
While fighting various aspects of the American case, Dotcom has also had legal squabblings with the New Zealand government and affiliated agencies about their role in raiding his home, in arresting him and other Mega execs at the request of the Americans, and in spying on his company’s activities before the big January 2012 raid.
But Dotcom reckons the authorities in Hong Kong also acted inappropriately in assisting American prosecutors, and that they too should accept some liability for the collapse of the original Mega company. Dotcom says that prior to the 2012 raid he and his colleagues had planned to float the MegaUpload business, which could have been valued at up to $2 billion at the time, he claims.
According to the South China Morning Post, Dotcom has now said: “We will take the Hong Kong government to court for the destruction of our business, because they acted for the US government when shutting down our business and freezing all our bank accounts. We were in the process of preparing a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the valuation of our company was over US$2 billion. Fortunately, the US government will have to indemnify Hong Kong for any damages awarded to us”.
So add yet another strand to the many legal battles of Dotcom, who also somehow finds time in between his various meetings with lawyers to run the all new Mega service, which launched earlier this year.
