The claim for which the relief was sought was in restitution and/or constructive trust against all four defendants. The Insurer also sought a proprietary injunction in respect of the bitcoin held at the account of the exchange. This illustrates, in part, some of the cross jurisdictional challenges of getting civil remedies against rogue foreign persons.Ī Bankers Trust order was, however, made in the Ion Sciences vs Persons Unknown and Others (unreported) 21 December 2020 (Commercial Court), and Fetch.AI Lrd & Anor v Persons Unknown Category A & Ors EWHC 2254 (Comm) (15 July 2021) cases. (In the UK there must be a jurisdictional gateway before service of a claim outside the UK can be ordered). This part of the motion was adjourned at the request of the Insurer because of uncertainty whether the Bankers Trust and Norwich orders could be made and served against institutions outside of the UK. The insurer also asked for a worldwide Mareva injunction order to freeze all the assets of the hackers. The Insurer also relied on the Bankers Trust jurisprudence which permits orders to be made against financial institutions to disclose confidential documents to support a proprietary claim in fraud or to trace assets or their proceeds that are the subject of a proprietary injunction. The Insurer relied on the well established Norwich Pharmacal disclosure jurisprudence that permits courts to require innocent intermediaries (in this case the exchange) that becomes mixed up in a wrongful act to provide information necessary for claimants to pursue their claims such as the identities of their account holders and information about the accounts. The Insurer asked for disclosure orders requiring the operators of the exchange to provide specified information in relation to the crypto currency account owned or controlled by the second defendant. Norwich, Bankers Trust and Freezing Order Application There could also be a risk of copycat attacks on the Insurer and/or the Insured Customer.26 There would also be the risk of further cyber or revenge attacks on both the Insurer and the Insured Customer by persons unknown. If the hearing was held in public there is a strong likelihood that the object of the application would be defeated because it would potentially tip off the persons unknown to enable them to dissipate the bitcoins. The overarching purpose of the application was to assist the applicant in its efforts to recover the 109.25 bitcoins that were unlawfully extorted.
The publicity would have defeated the object of the hearing. The Insured asked for an order that the hearing be conducted in private and for an anonymity order. Between 20, three AT&T users collectively lost over $26 million after their crypto assets were stolen in similar SIM swapping attacks.Īn order that the hearing be conducted in private and for an anonymity order Personal financial data of several users were leaked around that time and the victims remain uncompensated.ĪT&T itself, has frequently been a victim of SIM swapping attacks. In December 2020, hardware wallet player Ledger servers witnessed a spike in SIM swap threats. Later, the hacker( s) must have extracted the linked financial information with the new number.Įtheridge has demanded that AT&T must compensate him for the theft, the report said. By the time AT&T processed the attack, the hacker( s) stole ETH 159.8 tokens from the number-linked account.Īs is typical in such attacks, the notorious actor( s) may have found Etheridge's phone number and convinced the network provider, in this case AT&T to issue and activate a new SIM. Hackers managed to make an unauthorized entry into Etheridge's wireless account on September 10. In the police report filed on 15 September, Etheridge claimed that the network operator had been posting warnings against such attacks but did not do anything to tighten security against such breaches. After losing his Ether (ETH) tokens, Etheridge decided to take legal action against AT&T, questioning its user security provisions and demanding compensation.Īs per a report by news portal, the complainant has alleged that AT&T was aware of the threat involving these SIM swapping attacks. As per reports, Etheridge fell prey to a SIM Swap attack in which scammers dig out the numbers of potential victims and get them changed by network operators. 4 crores) from an account linked to his phone number. Jamarquis Etheridge, a Texas, US-based man sued AT&T after he lost cryptocurrency tokens worth $560,000 (roughly Rs. American telecom giant AT&T is being sued after one of its customers was allegedly scammed out of cryptocurrency in a SIM swap attack.
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