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Comment by skilled | Hacker News Reader

This was discussed yesterday a bit also,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40416629

I don’t fully understand the last sentence in this article, is this guy going to be punished for being a fraud or is that not how it works?

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I'd expect some of that injunctive relief to include his paying the other side's substantial legal fees.

He's had his assets frozen to ensure he can't get out of paying the legal fees:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/bitcoin-high-court-lon...

The norm, as far as I'm aware, is that the losing side is on the hook for the winner's legal fees. Seems like a pretty good deterrent against bringing frivolous claims.

Some pros, some cons. It can exacerbate power imbalances; Google can afford to be on the hook for a $20M legal team, but you probably can't.

The policy probably made more sense back when $20M legal teams didn't exist

That's true, in certain situations, companies can use the system to make it painfully risky to attempt to take action against them.

There's a very different business culture in the UK when it comes to legal threats and I suspect the fact the loser pays both sides plays a big part in that. As a business owner, I'm happy to avoid more commonplace legal nonsense, even if it means there's potential for huge companies to abuse it.

It's not any and all costs. The court makes the loser pay costs that are proportional and reasonable given the issues in the case. Which makes sense as otherwise Google could indeed tell its lawyers to go on a billing spree to hurt the counterparty if they lose.

(Not a lawyer)

From reports wright was already spending a multiple of what his opponents were spending, the risk of having to pay our legal costs was probably not a major factor in his thinking.

He essentially bragged on his slack that the relative costs didn't matter as his goal was ruining his opponents by causing them costs.

A relevant detail is that even though loser pays in the UK they don't pay 100%, so one can potentially make the residual they do pay ruinous.

If this was in the UK, I suspect he'll be paying winner's legal fees.

The US doesn't do that, but I'm pretty sure that it's fairly common, in the UK.

Good way to reduce frivolous lawsuits.

This was in the UK. He's paying at least those; I suspect this ruling will make a criminal prosectutor's ears perk up.

The US permits attorneys fees in some cases, including "against a plaintiff who has acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly or for oppressive reasons".

This whole thing reminds me of that guy that claims he invented email, and is suing everyone (The Nanny’s husband, if I remember).

> If this was in the UK, I suspect he'll be paying winner's legal fees.

> The US doesn't do that, but I'm pretty sure that it's fairly common, in the UK.

> Good way to reduce frivolous lawsuits.

Depends on what sort of lawsuits you care about facilitating.

A lot of lawsuits in the US are done on contingency. What happens if the defendant wins in that case? If the person bringing the case can't pay their own lawyers, they probably can't pay for the defense's legal bills either.

Is the law firm on the hook? That'll put a damper on the cases that firms will take on on a contingency basis.

In the UK the parties that finance litigation are supposed to be the hook in that case.

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