Kim Dotcom asks Hong Kong court to release restrained funds to cover legal and living costs
Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, who is wanted by the US government over a US$175 million copyright fraud, has asked a Hong Kong court to release about HK$18 million to cover legal costs and HK$405,000 in monthly payments for his living expenses.
Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, completed a 45-day extradition hearing in New Zealand last week.
His legal team in Hong Kong is asking the High Court to change the terms of his restraint order in the city so that Dotcom can access his funds to pay his legal fees and cover his living expenses.
His lawyer, Gerard McCoy SC, said the businessman’s “hands were tied behind his back”. He claimed if Dotcom was denied access to his money because of the order, it would be akin to “not allowing him to use his own money to defend the cases against him”.
The lawyer said Dotcom was represented by a “world-class” legal team in the New Zealand hearing, but since he had no money to pay them he had to use junior lawyers.
McCoy noted that the entrepreneur was facing 48 court orders around the world, and was asking for NZ$3 million (HK$15.2 million) plus HK$3 million for legal costs.
He also said that New Zealand had allowed Dotcom to spend NZ$80,000 per month on his living expenses. As his money had run out in New Zealand, the lawyer said, he wanted to take it from his Hong Kong funds.
The Department of Justice, at the request of the US government, applied in January 2012 for a restraining order to freeze the German-born businessman’s Hong Kong assets of more than HK$319 million.
Prosecutor Wayne Walsh SC, representing the government, objected to the application as he found Dotcom had failed to make a full disclosure of his assets to the court. He claimed Dotcom had started up two new businesses and made transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars to some Hong Kong bank accounts.
Walsh also found Dotcom failed to disclose details of his living costs and claimed he once asked for tens of thousands of New Zealand dollars for electricity bills.
McCoy said that Dotcom’s original claim was for NZ$170,000 per month, but he was finally granted NZ$80,000 for living expenses, which was much lower.
The hearing continues today before Deputy Judge Wilson Chan Ka-shun.
