Craig Wright’s attorney told CoinDesk on Thursday that the U.K. Supreme Court has refused to grant him permission to appeal a decision in his lawsuit against Peter McCormack.The decision was eventually confirmed by a Supreme Court post.“Permission to appeal is refused on the ground that the appeal does not raise an arguable question of law,” the denial stated.
Regarding Wright’s allegation that he is the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, a panel of judges decided in July that Wright was only entitled to 1 GBP in compensation for his libel suit against bitcoin podcaster Peter McCormack.
“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.”
Prior to press time, CoinDesk contacted Wright’s attorneys at Shoosmiths and McCormack, but they did not respond.Wright’s most recent setback is as a result of a brewing legal dispute with a group of cryptocurrency businesses and other bitcoin developers.
The group on Thursday turned down a settlement proposal that sought to end a protracted legal dispute in which Wright claimed that by using the bitcoin network and its databases for their work, they had infringed upon his copyright on the white paper, blockchain database, and file format of Bitcoin.
“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 is the legal representative for the 13 developers of the Bitcoin Core as well as businesses like Coinbase and Block that were included in Wright’s initial 2016 lawsuit.