UK Supreme Court Refuses Craig Wright Appeal

The U.K. Supreme Court denied Craig Wright permission to appeal a ruling in his case against Peter McCormack, a lawyer told CoinDesk on Thursday.

A posting from the Supreme Court later confirmed the ruling. "Permission to appeal is refused on the ground that the appeal does not raise an arguable question of law," read the denial.

In July a panel of judges ruled that Wright was only entitled to 1 GBP in compensation for a libel claim against bitcoin podcaster Peter McCormack, regarding Wright’s claim to be Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.

"We actually only just found out about it but it was at the end of end of last year, [the] Supreme Court refused permission for Craig Wright's appeal," said Rupert Cowper-Coles, a partner at law firm RPC who represents McCormack. "So they're very pleased that judgment stands - [the] one pound nominal damages award, which Craig has tried to appeal twice unsuccessfully."

CoinDesk reached out to Wright's lawyers with the firm Shoosmiths and McCormack but did not hear back before press time.

Wright's latest loss comes amid a boiling point in another legal battle he is waging against a coterie of crypto companies and several bitcoin developers.

The group on Thursday rejected an offer to settle a years-long case alleging that it had violated Wright's alleged copyright to Bitcoin's white paper, blockchain database and file format by accessing the bitcoin network and its databases for their work.

"Hard pass on that 'settlement,'" the non-profit Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA) tweeted. "The settlement offer isn't quite accurate either – it comes with loopholes that would allow him to sue people all over again."

COPA represents the 13 Bitcoin Core developers and companies such as Coinbase and Block named in Wright's original legal complaint from 2016.

Update (Jan 26 12:58 UTC): Adds Supreme Court confirmed news to par 1 and quote from Supreme Courts website to par 3.