14 DAY TRIAL // Megaupload has filed a lawsuit against the Hong Kong government as it tries to get its assets unfrozen.
Two years after the service had to shut down, Megaupload is now trying to free up its assets since the company has yet to be served.
According to TorrentFreak, the application was filed in a Hong Kong court and the company is asking the local Department of Justice to set aside the restraint order demanded by the United States government over two years ago.
Megaupload hopes to get access to the assets and use the funds to enable users to access their personal files, which have also been under lock-up for many months.
The order has stopped Megaupload from conducting business or paying bandwidth expenses needed to return the stored data to clients. Even the money necessary for server maintenance was blocked, which led to some of it being wiped out a while back.
“Over two years later, the US DOJ has yet to serve Megaupload or initiate substantive criminal proceedings against it, trapping Megaupload in a state of criminal limbo,” Megaupload’s global litigation counsel Ira Rothken said.
Megaupload has also argued that since the American Department of Justice has been unable to prosecute the company during all this time, this should be enough ground to discharge the injunction independent from the wishes of the US authorities.
Kim Dotcom’s company is trying to back up its request by submitting affidavits from two criminal law experts. One of them is former Assistant US Attorney Richard Davis and the other is Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford.
The High Court of Hong Kong has already ordered the Department of Justice to respond to these allegations and they have to file a response by early June. After this time, the court will decide on the issue.
If Megaupload wins the case, the game is on for a multi-billion dollar civil claim, which Dotcom has been threatening with for years.
Just recently, Dotcom himself obtained the right to access his personal frozen assets, which he should be able to do soon. The list of seized properties includes some 18 luxury cars, artwork, jewelry and 64 bank accounts containing over $218 million (€157.5 million).
Since he’s been fighting the accusations brought to him for the past two years with no funds, Dotcom is eager to get access to his money to take the fight further.