The U.S. District Court has confirmed that Ira Kleiman must pay Dr. Wright’s legal costs relating to all seven of Kleiman’s failed claims arising from last year’s Kleiman v Wright trial in Florida, where he failed to convince the jury that his brother had helped Dr. Wright invent Bitcoin.
In December, a jury found in Dr. Wright’s favor on all but one of the counts alleged by Ira Kleiman in the digital asset trial of the century. The only count to not go Dr. Wright’s way was the conversion claim made on behalf of W&K—a company which Dr. Wright appears to own. For that count, the jury awarded W&K $100 million, but pending litigation in Florida will definitively determine how much of W&K (and by extension, the $100 million) belongs to the Kleiman estate—if any at all. Until that happens, it’s not clear who will be entitled to the $100 million awarded to the company.
That the $100 million was just a fraction of the billions claimed by Kleiman (or that the award was made to W&K rather than Kleiman himself) hasn’t stopped his attorneys from taking to Twitter to erroneously claim victory. Unfortunately for them, as the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit winds down and final procedural matters are being settled by the court, reality keeps providing a stern rebuke to the idea that the lawsuit was anything but a landslide victory for Dr. Wright.
Monday’s order is no exception. Generally, the prevailing parties in a lawsuit will be entitled to recover costs. As such, here’s what Judge Reinhart had to say:
Here, given that Judge Bloom entered final judgment for substantial damages in favor of W&K, I find that it is a prevailing party and entitled to recover its taxable costs. And, given that Mr. Kleiman did not succeed on any of his claims and W&K did not succeed on five of its claims, I find that Dr. Wright is the prevailing party as to those claims and thus, he is entitled to an award of costs as well.
Andres Rivero, representing Dr. Wright on behalf of Rivero Mestre, said:
“We are extremely pleased that Magistrate Judge Reinhart yet again deemed that Ira Kleiman ‘did not succeed on any of his claims’ and found that Dr. Craig Wright is the prevailing party on 5 out of 6 claims, entitling him to an award of costs of $103,146.06.
“W&K Info Defense Research won on 1 claim entitling the corporation to costs as well, but the ownership and control status of W&K is still unclear and is subject to two pending lawsuits in Palm Beach state court, meaning Kleiman will not be the main beneficiary of any money received by the entity.”
Dr. Wright is now entitled to recover costs worth $103,146.06 from Ira Kleiman and W&K. Parties must file any objections within 14 days. In the meantime, the 30-day counter for parties to appeal the trial verdict has already started running—and Kleiman’s attorneys have already indicated they will appeal.
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