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Kim Dotcom Sues New Zealand For $6.8 Billion In Damages Over Erroneous Arrest (torrentfreak.com) 216

Posted by BeauHD from the fighting-extradition dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Kim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing site Megaupload, is suing the New Zealand government for billions of dollars in damages over his arrest in 2012. The internet entrepreneur is fighting extradition to the U.S. to stand trial for copyright infringement and fraud. Mr Dotcom says an invalid arrest warrant negated all charges against him. He is seeking damages for destruction to his business and loss of reputation. Accountants calculate that the Megaupload group of companies would be worth $10 billion today, had it not been shut down during the raid. As he was a 68% shareholder in the business, Mr Dotcom has asked for damages going up to $6.8 billion. He is also considering taking similar action against the Hong Kong government. As stated in documents filed with the High Court, Mr Dotcom is also seeking damages for: all lost business opportunities since 2012, his legal costs, loss of investments he made to the mansion he was renting, his lost opportunity to purchase the mansion, and loss of reputation.
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Kim Dotcom Sues New Zealand For $6.8 Billion In Damages Over Erroneous Arrest More

Kim Dotcom Sues New Zealand For $6.8 Billion In Damages Over Erroneous Arrest

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  • Bring it on big guy. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MoaDweeb ( 858263 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @07:42PM (#55996475)

    Yeah the Police didn't have a valid warrant, spied on him illegally and chucked his MittleEurope ass in pokey.

    That's all fine 'cos they were doing the bidding of The Mouse and our Govt was only too keen to dry hump the US Govt's leg.
    Got one of our previous Prime Minister's a number of golf games with ex-Pres. Obama though.

    However I think his chance of getting through or not being deported are slim. Although he has seen off 2 PMs thus far maybe he will see off a third?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      He pissed off the wrong people. He is learning that justice is a farce. It doesn't matter how right he is, he will receive none, and will only delay the roasting they have every intention of giving him.

      This is how power actually works in the real world. You get pretensions of justice if you basically follow the rules and don't piss off any of the people who actually matter.

      Apart from that, you are cattle, and will be treated as such.

      • He has money and he's standing up for piracy and pirates in general.

        He's hiring good lawyers and fighting the good fight. He might set some precedents that will be useful later.

        He's just lucky in that he was already successful before they came after him so he can do a reasonable job on his defense. Most piracy cases are targetting people who can't afford to defend themselves so their defense is weak and the precedents set are scary and horrible.

        I don't think Kim really cares about the money he'd get f
    • Well as long as his arrest made Obama happy that's all that matters, right?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      The high court is New Zealand is hugely different to the corrupt US top court where all sorts of paid for fanciful interpretations are allowed. The high priest of law system is in place ie the judges are scrupulous on the letter of the law interpretation, not happy rewrite the law, don't try to get us to corruptly interpret it like the US. So it would not have lasted any where near this long, if the New Zealand government was not fucked and knew it and was extending it out to forgotten history and a reasona

      • Re:Bring it on big guy. (Score:4, Informative)

        by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Thursday January 25, 2018 @08:02AM (#55998389)

        The high court is New Zealand is hugely different to the corrupt US top court where all sorts of paid for fanciful interpretations are allowed. The high priest of law system is in place ie the judges are scrupulous on the letter of the law interpretation, not happy rewrite the law, don't try to get us to corruptly interpret it like the US. So it would not have lasted any where near this long, if the New Zealand government was not fucked and knew it and was extending it out to forgotten history and a reasonable payout whereby the US governments foots the bill.

        Its the difference an english style justice system makes. One of the fatal mistakes the US has made with its justitce system is the way it appoints judges has become utterly politicized, to the point where , somewhat bafflingly, in some states they actually vote for them, which has led to mindboggling corruption in so many cases.. There should be no such thing as a "conservative" or "liberal" judge, its an absurdity.
        More to the point, where theres electoral politics , even in the case of indirect electoral politics (Ie appointment of judges by elected officials) theres always the chance of corruption where interests can say "Give us this judge who we know always votes against consumers in copyright cases, and we'll throw another million into the electoral fund"

        The way the rest of the world does it, the court apoints new judges as the need emerges, with the government simply approving the choices. If the govt intervenes it better have a damn good reason, or theres trouble.

        Here in australia we had one case recently where the previous conservative government in Queensland (Its kind of like our Arizona, meth lab of democracy), put some crazy asshole with almost no qualification into the supreme court, throwing a huge protest up from the supreme court itself because it was unconscionable interference with the courts by a government that repeatedly kept violating the constitution and federal laws and thus had come into pretty serious conflict with the court. Fortunately the dodgy appointment soon realised he was way out of his depth and quit.

  • Can't but (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @07:42PM (#55996477)

    I can't but wish him the best and hope he succeed. Not because of whom he is but to make sure government knows if it oversteps it's boundaries and relinquishes sovereignty to USA it would come with a high price. Hope they also jail every national traitor involved.

  • Good luck to him (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They should cough up. They destroyed him at the US government's whims. Now it's time to pay the piper.

  • They could award him 6.8 billion in Zimbabwe Dollars, pay him with a Trillion ZWD note, and tell him to keep the change. I'm sure Mr Dotcom would appreciate the irony.

  • Sovereign immunity? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SLi ( 132609 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @07:53PM (#55996531)

    Isn't there an equivalent of sovereign immunity in New Zealand? If I understand correctly, the sovereign immunity doctrine at least in the US would bar such a suit against the government. Sovereign immunity is the concept that a sovereign cannot be sued for damages except in cases where it has waived the immunity (for example, by having a law stating that it is responsible for damages in certain types of cases, usually with an upper limit).

    I presume no sane government would make a law that subjects the country to that large liabilities. Many countries have laws that provide for some kind of restitution from the state in the case of wrongful imprisonment, but it's hard to imagine an unlimited liability.

    If the officers of the state did wrong, it may be possible to sue them for damages (also in the US), but good luck collecting billions of dollars from them...

    • Re:Sovereign immunity? (Score:4, Informative)

      by taustin ( 171655 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @07:56PM (#55996549) Homepage Journal

      People sue, and win against, the federal government in the US on a regular basis. Sovereign immunity isn't absolute.

      • People sue, and win against, the federal government in the US on a regular basis. Sovereign immunity isn't absolute.

        But it does, as the original poster points out, require the government to agree to be sued. Yes, there are a series of things you can sue the government over enshrined in law, but this amounts to prior agreement to wave immunity in the cases covered by the laws.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • I'd liken it to, when you were a kid, and you had a gripe/complaint about your parents. You'd have to petition your parents for a change of rules or procedures.

          If only there were a separate but co-equal someone to your parents you could petition for redress of your grievances. I'd liken it to, the US courts and the US legislature/executive branch.

          • I'd liken it to, when you were a kid, and you had a gripe/complaint about your parents. You'd have to petition your parents for a change of rules or procedures.

            If only there were a separate but co-equal someone to your parents you could petition for redress of your grievances.

            There is (in the traditional family, at least). If Dad won't listen, you go to Mom, or vice versa. Of course, Mom and Dad generally have a very similar perspective, and have strong reasons to be closely aligned. Like branches of the government.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          We're talking about New Zealand rather then America, which seems to have a stronger form of sovereign immunity then countries with a sovereign now. I don't know about New Zealand but here in Canada the legislature has pretty well got rid of sovereign immunity for torts so the people (but not necessarily the Provinces) are free to sue the Crown (when acting as the government) generally. I believe the UK is similar in that the people can sue the Crown in right of the government but not the actual Queen. Note

      • Only if the government has decided that it can be sued [wikipedia.org] for that issue. Sovereign immunity starts off absolute, and exceptions are only allowed when the government itself decides to allow them.

        Since New Zealand is part of the British Commonwealth, they share the UK's common law which includes sovereign immunity. So I too am curious if the kiwi government has allowed themselves to be sued in this manner.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Knuckles ( 8964 )

      IANAL, but Wikipedia says that sovereign immunity generally applies to immunity from foreign national courts.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      I see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] that it is different in the US. Yet another reason not to live there

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Knuckles ( 8964 )

          There's a difference whether the law that the state gave itself says "I am always right, you can't sue me", or not.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          In a free country, the people have to be able to sue the government when rights are trampled and many free countries have codified this in law. For a country to repeal that right of the people would be tyranny.

    • Re:Sovereign immunity? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @08:15PM (#55996627)

      AFAIK NZ does not have sovereign immunity , lots of people have successfully sued the government.

      NZ only has ONE police force, funded from central government funds. There are no elected law enforcement agents , and the head of any government department is also not forced to resign with any change of government. To become a judge is actually quite difficult in NZ, and is generally outside the sphere of political interference.

      NZ used to have access to the UK privy council for legal appeals, many cases were taken there against the government and rulings were made against the government.

      For wrongful imprisonment it depends on if you are found innocent vs not guilty, and there is a formula used to work out the payment, though the government has to approve final settlement, however this too can be appealed through the courts.

      If he can prove the losses, there is a good chance he could receive the compensation he asks for, however I suspect he is likely to get at most 10% of what he is asking for, though local Maori has successfully received compensation for over $1 Billion

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Governments are held accountable to their constituents in different ways around the world.
      The USA said you can't sue us, but you have the right to arm yourself to the teeth.
      NZ said you can't own a gun and we can out fire you, but it's your constitutional right to hold us accountable in court.

      You'll find a lot of commonwealth nations followed the UK in this. The UK introduced laws that made the Crown liable in 1947. NZ followed suit in 1950, and that was subsequently added to their Bill of Rights.

      I presume no sane government would make a law that subjects the country to that large liabilities.

      Why not? Go

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rhazz ( 2853871 )
      I think sovereign immunity applies to criminal acts, not monetary liability. In Canada, our citizens have certain rights, and if the government doesn't respect those rights then they can be sued. I'm sure this varies by country. Best example for us was quite recent. [wikipedia.org]

  • I think he should be able to sue the National party and all members who were involved at the time.
    It was their decision to allow what happened.
    The rest of the government and the taxpayers of New Zealand should have no liability.
    Apart from that, I still don't understand why they haven't just pushed him onto a plane and sent him off to meet with the FBI or whoever.

  • Hell Yes (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I agree with this action. As a New Zealand I am ashamed of the way he was treated, more so over how the NZ Government bowed to pressure from the USA. 6.8 billion, sure - he's gone a a silly number knowing that if it settles he might get less than 10%. I actually hope he wins.

    • As a New Zealander, I wish he wasn't even allowed in here in the first place.
      He's a convicted criminal and lied in his residency application.
      I don't care where he goes. Send him back to Hong Kong or Germany.

    • He's far more likely to get 1% than he is to get 10%. Even that would probably be one of the largest payouts in a court case in NZ in a long time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LesFerg ( 452838 )

      And who in government or any government agency is "punished" by him taking this action?
      Not a one of them.
      Who suffers from this? New Zealanders, the taxpayers and those who rely on the things achieved with tax dollars. That is who suffers. Along with our legal system being tied up for gods know how many combined man hours, when they have plenty of work to do already.
      It would be much more useful if Dotcom were to identify specific individuals who did not follow the laws of the land, and tried to get specif

  • Hard core IRS here. The U.S. is sure run by the IRS that can only pay out in damages. That dude may have to disappear. Maybe move out.

  • How Much Was The Pirated Software Worth? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dryriver ( 1010635 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @08:23PM (#55996675)
    Megaupload was a service (deliberately) overflowing with cracked copies of commercial software ranging in price from a few hundred Dollars to a few tens of thousands of Dollars - high end CAD software for example. THAT is largely what attracted millions of people to Megaupload - it was an online place where Kim Dotcom gave away thousands of software companies' products for free and people and also businesses in 196 countries could just "click and download for free". If you were to add together the monetary value of the software downloaded from Megaupload over the years and the financial damage caused, you might end up with far more than the "10 Billion Dollars" Kim claims Megaupload would have been worth today. Kim tried to make himself a billionaire businessmen by nonchalantly giving away other people's property without their permission. That does not excuse the nature of the police action against him, but I suspect that a strong message was intended to be sent to hundreds of other would-be-Kim-Dotcoms who wanted to hole themselves up in poorly governed countries with lax laws and build their very own "Megaupload". Kim Dotcom probably banked on the fact that if sued for piracy, he could claim "I just provide the servers - I'm not responsible for what people upload to them or download from them", and depending on the laws in New Zealand that might actually have worked for him. Kim was in New Zealand because there was no way his native Germany would have allowed the creation of something like Megaupload in the first place - German police would have shut the site down in weeks.
    • The German police would have had trouble closing down a Hong Kong company, with servers in Hong Kong though.

      Kim Dotcom lived in New Zealand, but the Mega companies had nothing to do with either NZ or Germany.

    • Re:How Much Was The Pirated Software Worth? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kabukiwookie ( 2677869 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @09:14PM (#55996909)

      This is bullshit.

      I don't like Kim Dotcom, but Megaupload is in principle nothing different than Dropbox or OneDrive and even though he did not have to comply with the US DMCA law, he actually facilitated the US govt and removed things for which a take-down notice was issued.

      At some point he was asked by the US government to retain files that were 'pirated' on Megaupload's servers, which was later used against him. Even though there is proof that this was done at the behest of the government.

      The reason why Dropbox and OneDrive can exist is the fact that these are US companies. The US, not just the corporations, but its legal enforcer, the US government, will attempt stamp out any competition.

      On top of that, sending a anti-terror squad to his house to arrest him, while a letter from the justice department telling him to come to the nearest police office, would have had a similar, but somewhat less dramatic effect.

      He was meant to be made an example, with John Key sucking up to Obama and his RIAA/MPAA masters.

      As a kiwi I hope he doesn't make progress with his damages suit, but if it does, they should present the bill to hair pulling, too sleazy to be a second card dealer, John Key.

    • Spot on. Totally agree, especially about the Germans not putting up with a bs web site with zero or no moderation over the content being posted.

      I mean seriously to all the knuckle heads commenting about liberties and freedoms... Just go and post a off topic comment and maybe throw in some abusive, pornographic or other illicit / illegal content on this discussion and just see how long your comment lasts before it is MODERATED.

      I think the judge will consider the nature of what the Megaupload business was an

    • The monetary value of software downloaded has no relation at all to the financial damages experienced by a company. I admit, I downloaded AutoCAD. I would never in my right mind buy it. What did happen though is I learnt how to use it and subsequently I requested a copy for use in my office.

      The monetary damage of AutoCAD being available to me via megaupload is at present a large negative number.

  • I feel conflicted (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Kim Dotcom is a wanker of the highest order, however having read the Statement of Claim I'd have to take his side.

    Facts are facts. The guy already got a 6-figure settlement from the police for their SWAT-style raid when nobody in the house had a history of violence. The use of those tactics on a woman who was 7 months pregnant with twins has horrific optics. It's readily apparent that everyone involved acquiesced to the desires of the MPAA, legal procedures be damned.

    If the US Government can go after him

    • So many people get killed from SWAT raids, couldn't this have been one of them? I mean, it's not like this blob is hard to miss.

  • If he has anything close to a legitimate case, won't this guarantee his extradition to the U.S.?

    • won't this guarantee his extradition to the U.S.?

      How?

      • By pissing off the only one that stands between him and being thrown across the big pond?

        • Thats not how it works though. They have to do it legally. NZ and AU aren't the US yet, thank goodness.

          • That's not how it should work, agreed. But if I was dependent on a country's interest in protecting their sovereignty against an overreaching international bully, I wouldn't try to give this country a reason to instead try hard to find some kind of loophole in its own law to get rid of me.

  • It was the USA government which seized Megaupload's assets and shut the company down overnight. This was clearly wrong, because it was done on the basis of legal proceedings similar to issuing a search warrant. Megaupload was utterly destroyed without having any opportunity to put its side of the argument to a court. (I'm not saying Megaupload could have successfully have defended itself, but justice demands it should have had the opportunity.)

    I can well believe that Dotcom has some case to make against NZ,

  • Something happened that he needs publicity again, or just his narcissistic ego playing up?

    It's a bullshit lawsuit, of course, and will be laughed out of court, but look there, headline! Omg, can you possibly be more transparent in your actions?

    Why is /. promoting career criminals narcissism? He bought ads on here recently or what?

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 25, 2018 @04:39AM (#55997979)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Considering his only reputation was that he's a fraud, an inside trader and generally an asshole that would throw his partners under a bus for shits and giggles (and getting a get-out-of-jail card for it) numerous times, he should rather be PAYING anyone that manages to make him shed his reputation!

  • Kimmie, here's a tale for you (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday January 25, 2018 @06:18AM (#55998207)

    Considering that the New Zealand authorities are the ONLY thing that keeps you from getting thrown to the wolves the US are...

    A mouse was fleeing from the cat and came to a cow. The mouse begged "hide me!", which prompted the cow to drop a huge, smelly big cow pat onto the mouse, covering it fully. The cat came along and didn't see the mouse, the mouse on the other hand squeaked and squeaked, happy to be safe from the cat.

    The cat heard the squeaking and picked up the mouse on its tail, cleaned the mouse of the manure and ate it.

    Moral of the story: Not everyone that shits on you is your enemy. Not everyone that pulls you out of the shit is your friend. And when you're up past your neck in manure, shut the fuck up!

  • I think Kim Dotcom did have a point when he pointed out that youtube allows people to access tons of copyrighted material (you can listen to practically any song that you want). So why aren't google execs being arrested?

  • Think about it....those billions of dollars have to come from somewhere if the government has to pay up....and where does the government get their money from?

    Punish the majority for the actions of the few. For someone who wants to stay in New Zealand, effectively suing the citizens of the country you want to stay in for billions of dollars seems a bit counterproductive.

    • The taxpayers of New Zealand elected the government that violated its own laws. How is this different from Bush getting us into an unnecessary war that cost trillions, destabilized the Middle East, and helped form ISIS? I didn't vote for the guy, but I still get to pay for what he did.

      • You're seriously making that comparison? :\

        • Both are potentially expensive decisions that I disapproved of. Granted, they're different in size and numbers of people killed and international relations, but the taxpayer-pays part is the same.

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