UK Court Grants Permission to Appeal Law Ruling on 61,000-Plus Bitcoin

The High Court of England and Wales granted about 16,000 Chinese applicants permission to appeal a ruling on the law governing their asserted rights to more than 61,000 Bitcoin (BTC).

The court granted permission at an Oct. 16 hearing, four days after ruling that Chinese law governs the applicants’ asserted property rights in the Qian Zhimin case. Permission lets the applicants challenge that ruling; it does not decide the appeal.

The Oct. 12 decision did not establish whether any applicant owns the Bitcoin, order a transfer or determine how a recovery would be divided. The court has not yet decided how Chinese law applies to individual claims.

At the Oct. 16 hearing, lawyers also discussed costs from the dispute over governing law. They addressed whether the individual applicants would continue seeking recovery and how applicants could withdraw from the proceedings.

The case involves Bitcoin purchased with proceeds from investment schemes operated in China between 2014 and 2017. The legal challenge will determine which law applies to the applicants’ asserted property rights, leaving their individual ownership claims to be resolved separately.