UK Court of Appeals dismisses BSV lawsuit against Binance, others over 2019 delisting

The UK Court of Appeals dismissed a high-profile challenge by BSV Claims Ltd, which sought up to £9 billion in damages from Binance and other exchanges over the 2019 delisting of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV).

BSV Claims, acting on behalf of around 243,000 BSV holders, alleged that coordinated delisting actions by Binance, Kraken, and ShapeShift, among others, violated competition law and severely harmed BSV’s value.

A subgroup of roughly 75,000 investors, who held BSV continuously from April 2019 to July 2022, was seeking damages not just for immediate losses but for “foregone growth” based on the speculative premise that BSV could have become a top-tier crypto like Bitcoin (BTC).

Court upholds market mitigation rule

The Competition Appeal Tribunal had previously declined to strike out the lawsuit but limited the scope of recoverable damages.

The Court of Appeal upheld that view, ruling that those who were aware of the delistings had access to other tradeable cryptocurrencies and should have mitigated losses by selling their BSV holdings.

The court emphasized that the claimants “cannot seek hundreds of times more than the value of the assets that the defendants had allegedly damaged.” The court also found that BSV was not unique and that comparable investments were readily available.

The judgment criticized the Tribunal’s failure to formalize its decision in a clear order, suggesting that procedural clarity would have helped avoid unnecessary appeal.

However, the Court of Appeal decisively ruled that no trial was needed to determine whether sub-class B members had viable alternatives, reaffirming the “market mitigation rule” as controlling.

Speculative damages dismissed

BSV Claims also sought to argue that the damages should include the “loss of a chance” that BSV might have evolved into a top-tier crypto.

The court dismissed this as well, noting that such a claim failed to meet legal thresholds and amounted to ungrounded market speculation.

The representative’s damages theory, built on the assumption that BSV could have matched Bitcoin’s meteoric rise, was found to lack both legal precedent and a realistic foundation.

The claim relied on a 352x increase from BSV’s pre-delisting value, a leap that the court deemed implausible for the purpose of legal redress.

An official order reflecting the May 21 appellate judgment will be finalized between the parties in due course. The lawsuit remains ongoing for other investor subgroups, particularly those who sold BSV shortly after the delisting or lost access entirely on exchanges like Kraken and Binance.

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