Other jurisdictions
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| Case | Citation | Court | Proposition |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA v Persons Unknown | [2019] EWHC 3556 (Comm) | High Court of England and Wales (Bryan J) | Crypto assets are property for the purposes of a proprietary injunction, adopting the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce statement. |
| Ion Science Ltd v Persons Unknown | Unreported, 21 December 2020 | High Court of England and Wales (Butcher J) | Lex situs of a crypto asset is the place where its owner is domiciled; Bankers Trust orders against foreign exchanges. |
| Wang v Darby | [2021] EWHC 3054 (Comm) | High Court of England and Wales (Stephen Houseman QC) | No trust over tezos tokens exchanged under a bilateral arrangement; the parties' contract governed. |
| Tulip Trading Ltd v Van der Laan | [2023] EWCA Civ 83 | Court of Appeal of England and Wales | Serious issue to be tried whether bitcoin developers owe fiduciary duties to owners who have lost their keys. |
| Osbourne v Persons Unknown | [2022] EWHC 1021 (Comm) | High Court of England and Wales | NFTs are property; injunction and disclosure orders. |
| Piroozzadeh v Persons Unknown | [2023] EWHC 1024 (Ch) | High Court of England and Wales (Trower J) | Injunction against an exchange discharged; limits of proprietary relief against an exchange that has mixed deposits. |
| D'Aloia v Persons Unknown | [2024] EWHC 2342 (Ch) | High Court of England and Wales (Richard Farnhill, Deputy Judge) | USDT is property capable of being traced and held on trust; claim failed on tracing through a mixed account at trial. |
| Ruscoe v Cryptopia Ltd (in liquidation) | [2020] NZHC 728 | High Court of New Zealand (Gendall J) | Crypto assets are property; exchange held customers' coins on express trust, one trust per coin type. |
| Re Gatecoin Ltd | [2023] HKCFI 914 | Court of First Instance, Hong Kong (Linda Chan J) | Crypto assets are property under Hong Kong law; whether customer assets were held on trust depended on the terms of service in force. |
| Nico Constantijn Antonius Samara v Stive Jean Paul Dan | [2022] HKCFI 1254 | Court of First Instance, Hong Kong | Bitcoin is property capable of being the subject of a Mareva-type injunction. |
| SEC v Ripple Labs Inc | 682 F. Supp. 3d 308 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) | United States District Court, Southern District of New York (Torres J) | Institutional sales of XRP were investment contracts; programmatic sales on exchanges were not. |
| SEC v Terraform Labs Pte Ltd | 684 F. Supp. 3d 170 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) | United States District Court, Southern District of New York (Rakoff J) | Terra tokens offered as investment contracts; Howey applied to a Singapore issuer. |
| In re Celsius Network LLC (Earn programme) | Bankr. S.D.N.Y., 4 January 2023 | United States Bankruptcy Court | Under the terms of use, crypto assets in Earn accounts belonged to the estate and customers were unsecured creditors. |
| Skatteverket v David Hedqvist | Case C-264/14, ECLI:EU:C:2015:718 | Court of Justice of the European Union | Exchange of bitcoin for traditional currency is a supply of services exempt from VAT as a transaction concerning currency. |
For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.