UK Court of Appeal Dismisses BSV Claims Ltd's Lawsuit Against Binance and Other Exchanges

The UK Court of Appeals dismissed a high-profile challenge by BSV Claims Ltd, which sought up to £9 billion in damages from Binance and other exchanges over the 2019 delisting of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV).

The UK Court of Appeals has dismissed a high-profile claim by BSV Claims Ltd, which was seeking up to £9 billion in damages from Binance and other exchanges over the 2019 delisting of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV).

The appeals court upheld a lower tribunal’s view that the claim, which was brought on behalf of around 243,000 BSV holders, was largely out of scope.

Specifically, the court ruled that those who were aware of the delistings had access to other tradeable cryptocurrencies and should have mitigated their losses by selling their BSV holdings.

“It seems to me incredible that Parliament can have intended that the claimants can, in effect, seek an award of damages for an amount that is several hundred times more than the value of the assets that the defendants are said to have damaged,” stated Lord Justice Males in his judgment.

The court also found that BSV was not unique and that comparable investments were readily available.

The judgment further criticized the Tribunal for failing to formalize its decision in a clear order.

“It would surely have assisted matters if the Tribunal had seen fit to put its decision into an express and formal order,” the court stated.

However, the appeals court decisively ruled that no trial was needed to determine whether sub-class B members had viable alternatives, reaffirming the “market mitigation rule” as controlling in this instance.

Speculative damages dismissed

BSV Claims had also sought to argue that the damages should include the “loss of a chance” that BSV might have evolved into a top-tier crypto, much like Bitcoin (BTC).

However, the appeals court dismissed this contention as well.

It ruled that such a claim failed to meet the legal thresholds and amounted to ungrounded market speculation.

The representative’s damages theory, which was based on the assumption that BSV could have achieved a similar meteoric rise to Bitcoin, was found to lack both legal precedent and a realistic foundation.

Claimants were unable to demonstrate a serious possibility of BSV reaching the apex of the crypto market, rendering the damages claim inadmissible.

The claim relied on a 352x increase from BSV’s pre-delisting value, a leap that the appeals court deemed implausible for the purpose of legal redress.

An official order reflecting the May 21 appellate judgment will be finalized between the parties in due course.

The lawsuit remains ongoing for other investor subgroups, particularly those who sold BSV shortly after the delisting or lost access entirely on exchanges like Kraken and Binance.