At last years Edinburgh Financial Cryptography Engineering Conference we all received a bit of a suprise when suit was brought against Systemic's Ian Grigg by DigiGold.

Basically DigiGold wanted an injunction against Systemics to continue to provide service for them. Systemics ran the technology behind the DigiGold currency using their WebFunds technology. To find out more about the case see Ian's Summary of Facts.

Anyway the case went to an arbitrator who has now given their final award - DigiGold lost. This is good news. Ian is one of the most prolific developers of financial cryptography software. Now, he will be able to put all his energy back into it.

Ian's mail:

In the matter of DigiGold v. Systemics, the Arbitration (AAA) claim brought and filed in May 2001, at EFCE, by DigiGold.net Ltd, the Final Award was delivered this last Wednesday, 28th August 2002 by the Arbitrator.

We have not had much of a chance to analyse and form conclusions on the long document delivered, but the headline is very clear:

None of the claims brought by DigiGold was upheld.

That is, DigiGold's claims were denied by the Arbitrator.

I offer my thanks to all those who supported us in the tough times of the last couple of years. We were lucky to have such a wide body of strong supporters, and also doubly lucky to find ourselves with counsel capable of absorbing and dominating the first test case in the now mature field of Financial Cryptography!

Notes:
* Some claims by DigiGold were earlier dismissed early for lack of jurisdiction.
* Systemics did not file a counter-claim.
* Arbitration has no appeal, hence the title of "Final Award."

--
iang