Bitcoin SV: Craig Wright’s wife wins lawsuit over Bitcoin losses

Craig Wright’s wife Ramona Ang won a legal battle with fintech firm Reliantco that operates crypto exchange UFX. According to court documents, Ramona Ang alleged that she lost bitcoin worth about $3 million after UFX terminated her account on the platform. Ang also claimed that the exchange did not return her funds after it closed her trading account. Overall, Ang’s claims amounted to $2,643,020. 

Ang claimed $600,000 in damages for gains that she would have allegedly made “had that money not been withheld.” Ang had claimed for $708,857, which was reportedly her initial investment placed in bitcoin futures of over US$400,000, as well as around $300,000 in gains on her open positions.

She further claimed losses amounting to $1,334,163 which she would have received had she opened a bitcoin account at crypto exchange Kraken and earned 3,530 bitcoin cash (BCH) during its fork from bitcoin. 

According to the ruling:  

Had she [Ramona Ang] been able to do so, and if Reliantco had not blocked her account, she would have closed her positions with Reliantco on about 3 or 4 September 2017 and would have bought 3530 Bitcoin Cash. As at 3 July 2020, 3530 Bitcoin Cash would have been worth US$1,334,163.30.

The latest ruling on the case stated that Reliantco “acted in breach of trust and of its fiduciary duties of loyalty in dealing with the positions opened on Ms. Ang’s account.”

It added that Reliantco failed to make the case that while Ang had opened the account in her name in January 2017:

It was Dr Wright who had thereafter operated the account ‘as a means of overcoming the effects of the Defendant’s termination of Dr Wright’s own account with it.’ 

The fintech firm also claimed the funds in Ang’s account were obtained by fraud, through Craig Wright’s connection with the account in question.

In April 2016, Wright apparently opened an account with Reliantco and deposited $10,000. The following month, he provided identification documents after the firm. But Reliantco blocked his account after a LexisNexis check on Wright allegedly indicated that “he had been accused of fraud in 2015.” However, by the end of May 2016, the firm returned $10,000 to Wright.