{"id":56250,"date":"2024-07-22T11:18:12","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T11:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/?p=56250"},"modified":"2024-07-22T11:18:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T11:18:44","slug":"1-billion-lawsuit-over-lost-hard-drive-with-275m-in-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/1-billion-lawsuit-over-lost-hard-drive-with-275m-in-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"Man&#8217;s \u00a31 billion Lawsuit Over Lost Hard Drive With \u00a3275m in Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A man is looking for \u00a31 billion in damages from his local council after a 10-year battle over a lost hard drive containing \u00a3275 million ($346m) in Bitcoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/uk-news\/dad-who-binned-275m-bitcoin-32102118\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>The Mirror reports<\/strong><\/a> James Howells is taking action against Newport City Council in the UK in a move which, if he wins, is likely to bankrupt the council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The row has been rumbling on for 10 years, with the council saying it did nothing wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The authority says it was correctly disposed of at a landfill site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Howells, 38, said the hard drive was thrown away during an office clean-up in 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said he put the drive in a trash bag, which was then mistakenly taken to the dump by his former partner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then, he has been embroiled in a row with the Labour-run council in Wales. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;They have to reasonably give back your property&#8221; <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>He is now, in a move similar to some of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/what-news-topical\/the-man-who-sued-basketball-legend-michael-jordan-for-looking-like-him-and-other-extraordinary-lawsuits\/\"><strong>the huge lawsuits seen in the U.S<\/strong><\/a>,  taking the matter to the High Court and a Judicial review to try to reclaim the item. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said: &#8220;It&#8217;s a bit like if you&#8217;re neighbours and you kick your football over next door&#8217;s fence &#8211; they have to reasonably give back your property. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They can&#8217;t instead build a brick wall over your property, which is effectively what Newport City Council has done by continuing to pile waste on it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"This man threw away $6 million worth of Bitcoins - BBC NEWS\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0tMXLDVpPs8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>His legal team is asking the council to be allowed access to the landfill site to search for the drive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is even offering to share the Bitcoin money with the council if the item is found. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Need Career Advice? <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/info\/category\/career-advice\/\"><strong>Get employment skills advice at all levels of your career<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But he claims the authority is &#8220;too stubborn&#8221; to back down over the matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Howells has stressed bankrupting the council is not his aim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says he wants the right to look for the item, as well as compensation based on the Bitcoin&#8217;s current value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The value of the Bitcoin has rocketed since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Howells claims he has identified the area where the drive could be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the search could take nine to 12 months, using specially deployed AI technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Follow us on <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/whatjobscom?lang=en\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>X<\/strong><\/a><strong>, <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/whatjobs\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>LinkedIn<\/strong><\/a><strong>, and <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/whatjobscom\/\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Facebook<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A man is looking for \u00a31 billion in damages from his local council due to a 10-year battle over a lost hard drive containing \u00a3275 million in Bitcoin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":56252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[414,2894,1065],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk-business-news","category-bizarre-lawsuits","category-us-business-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}