After hearing the judge’s ruling, Mr Howells said: “Britain’s great justice system is on the attack once again.” Mr Howells will recover a hard drive he lost in 2013 when the tip of the hard drive was accidentally thrown away. He has a hard drive that he has been trying to work with Newport City Council for 12 years, but says has been “largely ignored.”
James Howells has lost a lawsuit to recover missing Bitcoin hard drives from a Welsh landfill, which are now worth around $740 million.
Howells accidentally threw away a hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoins while cleaning out houses in 2013. At the time, he had two hard drives of the same size. One was empty and the other contained Bitcoin.
He accidentally put the bitcoins in a black trash bag, and his then-girlfriend took them away. At the time of his loss, his assets, which he mined in 2009, were worth about $1.3 million.
Howells filed a lawsuit in October seeking $646 million in damages from the Newport City Council, alleging he was denied access to the landfill citing environmental concerns.
Now, the BBC reports that Welsh Circuit Commercial Judge Judge Kaiser KC has dismissed Howells’ case, saying there were no “reasonable grounds” to prevail at a full trial.
12 years of battle
Mr Howells said he was “deeply disturbed” by the decision, adding: “Britain’s great justice system has suffered yet another blow.”
For the past 12 years, Mr Howells said he has been trying to work with Newport City Council to recover lost hard drives, but has been “largely ignored”.
Court filings say Howell’s hard drive is located in Cell 2 of Area 2 of the Doxway Landfill. But despite promises to safely excavate the Newport site and modernize the landfill, the City Council rejected Howells’ request to excavate, citing “environmental concerns.”
Mr Howells’ lawyers claim the council “simply ignored” that 10% of Bitcoin could bring “huge investment that is desperately needed in local communities.”
The judge’s ruling came as Bitcoin soared above $100,000 for the first time in early December, rising to an all-time high of more than $108,000.
