The founder of controversial gossip website Tattle Life is being threatened with up to 40 further libel actions, the High Court in Belfast heard on Thursday.
Counsel for Sebastian Bond disclosed the scale of potential new claims as a judge refused to relax an order freezing £1.8m (€2.1m) of his assets.
Mr Bond has already been sued in a landmark defamation and harassment case taken by Co Antrim-based entrepreneurs Neil and Donna Sands.
The couple were awarded £300,000 in damages over abusive comments posted on Tattle Life following a two-year legal battle to uncover the operator of the online forum.
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Neil Sands (43) and wife Donna (34) sued after postings were published in 2021 on the website, which hosts message boards and comments about influencers, celebrities and other members of the public.
A judge who dealt with their case said the site had been set up to deliberately inflict hurt and harm by allowing the anonymous trashing of reputations and “peddling untruths for profit”.
In June Mr Bond was named as a founder of Tattle Life after reporting restrictions were lifted.
Assets linked to him and two companies based in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong have also been frozen to ensure the damages award and associated costs can be met.
Mr Bond is now indicating he may challenge the court’s jurisdiction and seek to have the judgment made against him set aside.
At a hearing on Thursday, his barrister argued the order should be varied so he could access assets to pay for lawyers to represent him properly.
David Mitchell said his client should not have to sell off separate cryptocurrency holdings of £1.6m, incurring capital gains tax of up to 24 per cent in the process.
“That is manifestly unfair and unnecessarily complicated when it would be more straightforward to permit him access to frozen UK bank accounts in order to fund this litigation,” Mr Mitchell said.
He said it would be “a travesty of justice” if the defendant was forced to sell Bitcoin and then ultimately succeeded in having the judgment set aside.
“It is Mr Bond’s case that a campaign has been conducted against him where other potential plaintiffs are being encouraged to bring proceedings,” Mr Mitchell said.
He revealed that up to 40 letters threatening possible further legal actions have now been sent.
“Mr Bond doesn’t have the funds to pay for lawyers to represent him in any of these escalating claims,” Mr Mitchell said.
“It highlights the extreme predicament he finds himself in as a result of the freezing order.”
But Peter Girvan, for Mr and Mrs Sands, said they were facing a “moving target” in trying to establish the defendant’s finances.
“My clients’ concern is that Mr Bond is trying to ringfence £1.6m in Bitcoin ... and if things don’t go well for him he’s at least got his crypto assets and can disappear with them,” he said.
Ruling on the legal bid, Mr Justice Humphreys cited a previously identified risk that funds could be dissipated.
Describing the Bitcoin as accessible “at the click of a button”, the judge identified no evidence for the tax-liability claims amid uncertainty over Mr Bond’s residential status.
“The defendant has access to very considerable sums of money represented by cryptocurrency assets which can be liquidated by him for the purpose of paying for his legal representation,” he said.
