Canada’s Supreme Court of British Columbia Allows Copytrack Crypto Firm to “Reclaim” 530 ETH

Canadian Court Allows Firm to “Reclaim” 530 ETH Sent to Wrong Address

In what is being considered to be a landmark verdict by the crypto sector at large, the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued a judgement earlier last month, arising over a dispute which saw a substantial sum of ethereum (ETH) tokens being “mistakenly sent to an initial coin offering (ICO) investor”.

It is also worth noting that this ruling, which has been issued by Justice Skolrood, will most likely have major implications for cryptocurrency users and exchanges outside of the litigants involved with the aforementioned case.

More about the Judgement

With the passing of this judgement, Justice Skolrood essentially authorized a Singapore-based blockchain startup Copytrack to “track down and reclaim approximately 530 ETH” that the firm had ‘accidentally’ sent to an investor taking part in the company’s ICO.

The total worth of the 530 ETH as per the existing market rates of the time (September, 2018) is approximated to be $391,000 (CAD $495,000).

As per case documents published by the court in relation to the above matter, cryptocurrency investor Brian Wall participated in the Copytrack ICO, subscribing to purchase 530 CPY tokens. However, at the end of the ICO phase, Copytrack mistakenly sent Wall a total of 530 Ether instead of their native CPY coins.

Wall initially refused to return the 530 ETH to Copytrack, however, following the intervention of the Canadian Supreme Court, he agreed to comply with the verdict.

Final Take

This case has raised a number of pertinent legal questions, including whether the ether tokens should have been classified as “goods” or something else. However, Justice Skolrood’s take on the matter was more simplistic, with him maintaining that the “tokens essentially belonged to Copytrack— irrespective of the uncensorable transactions or not”.

Skolrood further remarked remarked:

“Further, regardless of the characterization of the Ether Tokens, it is undisputed that they were the property of Copytrack, they were sent to Wall in error, they were not returned when demand was made and Wall has no proprietary claim to them. While the evidence of what has happened to the Ether Tokens since is somewhat murky, this does not detract from the point that they should rightfully be returned to Copytrack.”

A majority of people believe that justice was delivered in this particular matter, however some of the niche’ aspects of this verdict could raise some concerns with investors moving forward.