Damages of at least US$1.6 million awarded by the US District Court in the ‘Bored Ape Yacht Club’ litigation

In May 2023 we reported on the IP infringement decision of the Californian District Court, in relation to the dispute between the creators of the Bored Aped Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible token (NFT) collection, Yuga Labs, and the ‘artists’ Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen.  In that decision, the Court found against the defendants and, on 25 October 2023, the order for damages was handed down. This blog post looks at the recent damages decisions and its implications. Read more

High Court finds developers did not owe duty to cryptoasset owners to enable access to lost cryptoassets

The High Court has held that cryptoasset systems and software developers did not owe a duty to cryptoasset owners to permit or enable access to the assets where the owners had lost control over the assets following a hack. The court set aside an order permitting service of the proceedings on the developers out of the jurisdiction, as the owners had not established a serious issue to be tried on the merits: Tulip Trading Limited v Bitcoin Association for BSV [2022] EWHC 667 (Ch). Read more