The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has issued a ruling in the legal dispute between Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator, and Ira Kleiman, pertaining to the ownership of billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin (BTC). The appeals court upheld the district court's decision and declined to grant a new trial in the case, citing no evidence that the prior decision was based on an incorrect legal standard.
The legal battle began in 2018 when Ira Kleiman filed a lawsuit against Craig Wright, seeking a 50% stake in the 1.1 million BTC mined during the early years of Bitcoin. Kleiman argued that his late brother, Dave Kleiman, was a partner of Wright during Bitcoin's early production and was entitled to a share of the assets.
For several years, Wright denied being business partners with Dave Kleiman, asserting that they were simply friends and that Dave had helped him edit a Bitcoin white paper that countered Kleiman's claims to the mined assets.
In 2021, a Florida court ruled that Craig Wright must pay W&K Info Defense Research $100 million for wrongfully taking the company from Kleiman. The jury also concluded that Wright and Kleiman were not business partners and that any damages should be paid in fiat currency, not Bitcoin. Following this verdict, Kleiman appealed the case, arguing that the court had used the wrong legal standard and had abused its discretion in the ruling.
However, the Court of Appeals carefully considered each of the arguments presented and ultimately found no compelling reason to overturn the jury's decision. They emphasized that the district court had not erred in vacating the sanctions imposed by the magistrate and that there was no indication that an incorrect legal standard had been applied. In essence, the court upheld the prior verdict regarding the partnership's claims in the case.
