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In Wright v The unnamed person or persons responsible for the operation and publication of the Bitcoin.org website [2022] EWHC 2982 the court ruled that if the Defendant intended to contest the Claimant’s bill of costs, they were required to identify themselves to both the court and the Claimant. In order to actively engage in proceedings, parties were required to reveal their identities. If they were concerned about the publication of their identity, they may obtain a court order anonymising their name and address to restrict the identification’s breadth.
Costs Judge Rowley has ruled that in detailed assessment procedures, if the defendant chooses to contest the Claimant’s bill of costs, they must identify themselves to the court and the Claimant.
Despite the immediate context, this decision is of broader importance to people contemplating making a claim as “persons unknown,” since it implies that a party must identify their identity if they desire to actively engage in proceedings.
Claimant had won a default judgement against Defendant for infringing copyright in a literary work pertaining to bitcoin. The Defendant refused to disclose their identity and mailing address, thus both the substantive and assessment processes were filed against “persons unknown.”
The Defendant issued points of contention, and the Claimant responded. Claimant subsequently requested an order that, if Defendant did not divulge their identity to the court and Claimant within seven days, they would be prohibited from participating in the evaluation and their disputes would be dismissed.
The counsels for both sides were unable to uncover any reported instances in which unidentified parties participated actively in proceedings.
The judge emphasised that in order to comply with CPR 47, a party serving points of dispute was not required to submit their name and address. Nonetheless, the rules as a whole made it apparent that parties must identify themselves when they first become actively involved in proceedings. In addition, when granting Claimant’s request to serve Defendant outside the jurisdiction by alternative means, Mann J ordered that Defendant would be required to identify themselves if they responded to the substantive proceedings, indicating that active participation would have required self-identification.
Until identification, the Defendant was unable to assert that they had submitted to the court’s jurisdiction, and the court was unable to consider the Defendant’s reasons of contention. Claimant would be permitted to seek a default costs certificate since it was as if no points of contention had been served.
Defendant was granted permission to appeal, notwithstanding the obvious difficulty of appealing. Any appeal had to be filed within 21 days of judgement delivery, failing which the Defendant had 14 days to self-identify. Claimant could then seek a default costs certificate if neither an appeal nor identification had been filed.
The judge noted that a party concerned about the disclosure of their identity could request that their name and address be made anonymous. Although this would not prevent an opponent from discovering their identity, it would restrict the breadth of the identification.