UK Court Rules Hard Drive Containing Over $700M in Bitcoin Belongs to Newport City Council

Claim Lacks Realistic Prospects of Success

A U.K. court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by James Howells against Newport City Council for its refusal to allow him to search for a lost hard drive containing roughly 7,500 bitcoins ( BTC). In a ruling delivered on January 9, Judge Keyser KC stated that Howells’ claim “had no realistic prospect of succeeding if it went to trial.”

According to a Guardian report, the judge also ruled there was no compelling reason to delay disposing of the claim at trial. This decision comes after Howells, a Newport-based computer engineer, filed a lawsuit in late 2024 seeking more than $640 million from the city council.

As reported by Bitcoin.com News in October 2024, Howells argued that the council had ignored his requests to excavate the landfill where he believes the hard drive is buried. He also reiterated his vow to donate 10% of the recovered BTC to the council should the search party succeed retrieving the hard drive.

However, the Newport City Council maintained in its opposing documents that it owned the hard drive, and Howells therefore lacked the right to claim it. Judge Keyser agreed with the council, stating:

“In my judgment, the defendant’s [the council’s] argument is correct and provides a complete answer to the claim.”

James Howells has been embroiled in a dispute with Newport City over the hard drive since discovering that his partner then had mistakenly thrown it away at a local dumpsite. The case has garnered significant media attention in recent years as the fiat value of the lost cryptocurrency skyrocketed with each BTC price surge.

Despite criticism, Howells’ legal team has been optimistic about recovering the hard drive. While opposing lawyers likened the search to finding a needle in a haystack, Howells’ attorney, Dean Armstrong KC, countered that the excavation would be a “precise” search of a small area.