MegaUpload asks Hong Kong court to unfreeze millions in assets

Shawn Knight

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megaupload hong kong

It’s been a while since we last heard from MegaUpload, the file sharing service that was shut down in early 2012 over alleged copyright infringement. That all changed recently as the company has asked a Hong Kong court to release millions of dollars in assets that were frozen years ago at the request of the US Department of Justice.

MegaUpload plans to use the recovered funds to get their servers back online so users can once again have access to files that were stored in the cloud. Said files have been inaccessible to the site’s users since the service was abruptly pulled offline.

Ira Rothken, an attorney for the company, told PCWorld that Hong Kong should have never seized the assets to begin with because MegaUpload was never properly served with a criminal summons. A summons can only be served within the US according to criminal procedures and MegaUpload was registered in Hong Kong, the publication pointed out.

The company waited over two years to file a request to have the assets unfrozen pending a decision from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on whether members would be allowed to retrieve their data. According to the attorney, the court has not addressed the issue since 2012.

The High Court has ordered the country’s Department of Justice to respond to the request by June 4.

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