A man trying to recover a Bitcoin hard drive in a landfill site which he says is now worth about £600m is “seeking to bribe the council”, it has been claimed in court.
Newport council has asked a High Court judge to strike out a claim by James Howells, who is attempting to sue the local authority to gain access to the site or get £495m in compensation.
Council barrister James Goudie KC said Mr Howells’ offer to donate 10% of the Bitcoin to the local community was encouraging the council to “play fast and loose” by “signing up for a share of the action”.
Dean Armstrong KC, for Mr Howells, said the “bribery” remark was “an unfortunate and pointless phrase” and said his client had a right to access the site to retrieve his Bitcoin.
Following the hearing in Cardiff, Judge Keyser KC said he would reserve his decision until a later date.
Mr Howells wants access to the Docksway landfill site, where he claims a digital wallet was mistakenly dumped by his former partner.
The hearing was to determine whether the case should go to a full trial.
Mr Howells has argued that his former partner erroneously dumped the hard drive containing a Bitcoin wallet in 2013.
He was an early adopter of cryptocurrencies and successfully created, or “mined”, the Bitcoin when it was worth a small fraction of its current value.
After Mr Howells launched legal proceedings, the council applied for a High Court hearing to ask a judge to dismiss the claim before going to trial.
Mr Goudie said there was “no duty” on the council to excavate its landfill site at the request of Mr Howells.
The council argued that the law stated that property deposited at landfill sites belonged to the local authority, and that its environmental permits forbade it from disrupting the area in pursuit of the hard drive.
