Three landmark judgments from the English courts and beyond, covering Bitcoin ransom recovery, stolen NFTs and the theft of video game gold, are collectively building a body of law that compliance professionals and regulated entities operating in the digital asset space can no longer afford to ignore.

June 2026 | Published by JIN Legal & Regulatory Compliance Consultants

The Situation at a Glance

The legal landscape around digital assets is slowly evolving, but is still in its development stages. The body of English case law on this topic is developing and coherent, and now covered by three judicial decisions: AA v Persons Unknown [2019] EWHC 3556 (Comm); Osbourne v Persons Unknown Category A and Others [2023] EWHC 39 (KB); and R v Andrew Lakeman [2026] EWCA Crim 4, which all acknowledge digital and virtual assets as property; recognise the rights to have them protected and to have such rights enforced by injunctions; and, in this latest case, hold that the criminal law of theft applies to virtual wealth acquired in game. The cases have direct implications for the compliance profession and regulated entities and financial institutions working with digital assets.

Case 1: AA v Persons Unknown [2019] EWHC 3556 (Comm)

Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3538956

Bitcoin as Property: The Foundation

The first English High Court ruling to directly address the issue of Bitcoin being considered a form of property, which can be subject to a proprietary injunction. The claimant was an insurance company which had paid USD 950,000 in Bitcoin as a ransomware ransom on behalf of a client whose computer systems had been encrypted by hackers. Bitcoin worth 96 of those were traced to Bitfinex exchange, where the claimant sought ex parte relief of an urgency.

Mr Justice Bryan said there was a serious issue to be tried whether the claimant had a cause to recover the Bitcoin as a property in restitution or as a constructive trust. The court confirmed that Bitcoin met the four part approach to property that Lord Wilberforce set out in National Provincial Bank v Ainsworth [1965] 1 AC 1175, which were definability, recognisability by third parties, assumption by third parties and permanency. The court further ruled that Bitcoin does not fall into either of the traditional categories of property, tangible or chose in action, but rather represents a third type of intangible property recognised by English law.

The court also made consequential order for service of proceedings through email to unknown defendants, which was later followed by service of proceedings through NFT in other cases. The service was provided outside the jurisdiction with permission pursuant to Practice Direction 6B.

Case 2: Osbourne v Persons Unknown Category A and Others [2023] EWHC 39 (KB)

Source: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2023/340.html

NFTs as Property: Injunctions, Constructive Trusts and Novel Service

This case was important in three ways: NFTs were considered to be property under English law; an interim injunction was granted against unknown downstream holders, based on the concept of constructive trust; and service by NFT was found to be a valid form of service.

Claimant, a blockchain technology consultant, whose unique digital artworks were held on a blockchain wallet, had her account hacked by unknown persons who took away two NFTs valued at GBP 3,000 to GBP 5,000 each on 17 January 2022. NFTs were tracked down to a series of wallets of downstream owners who were subsequently named as defendants. The claimant sought the addition of new defendants and to plead an equitable proprietary claim against them.

The court applied the principles in American Cyanamid Co v Ethicon Ltd [1975] AC 396 and drew on AA v Persons Unknown and other authority in its finding that the NFTs were property under English law, and that those who held NFTs downstream might have them held on constructive trust for the claimant. The court issued an interim injunction to prohibit the above said defendants from dealing with the NFTs and granted permission for service out of jurisdiction, to defendants likely to be outside the jurisdiction. Jurisdiction was granted in accordance with Practice Direction 6B gateway under 15( c) owing to the claim being strongly arguable to be governed by English law.

The decision reaffirmed and enforced (without creating any new precedent) a growing body of principles: NFTs are property, damages do not provide an adequate remedy for the theft of unique digital assets and English courts are happy to extend their jurisdiction to protect assets.

Case 3: R v Andrew Lakeman [2026] EWCA Crim 4

Source: https://www.iclr.co.uk/document/2026000340/2026ewcacrim4_TNA/html

Video Game Gold as Stolen Property: The Court of Appeal’s Landmark Ruling

The Court of Appeal’s landmark ruling in the Stolen video games case. Lord Justice Popplewell, Mr Justice Soole and His Honour Judge Mayo DL of the Court of Appeal gave their judgment on 13 January 2026, which was the latest and most significant of the three judgments. The main issue is whether gold items within an online game, Old School Runescape, are considered property, as defined by section 4 of the Theft Act 1968. The Court of Appeal, finding an unqualified yes, overturned the Crown Court’s verdict at Cambridge and reinstated the prosecution.

The Facts

Andrew Lakeman was a content developer at Jagex Ltd, who made Runescape. He did not have any player accounts he could access. The prosecution claimed that, with the help of hacked and/or misappropriated account recovery credentials, Lakeman was able to log into 68 player accounts, raiding hundreds of billions of gold pieces over the years and selling them offline for bitcoin and real money to buyers. Jagex estimated the amount of gold removed as being about 705 billion, having a real-world trading value of GBP 543,123.

A preparatory hearing in the Crown Court led to a ruling that gold pieces were not property in section 4 of the Theft Act, mainly because, since there was no limit to the amount of gold that could be earned, no one was infringing on the property of others.At a preparatory hearing in Crown Court, the Crown Court Judge ruled that gold pieces did not constitute property under section 4 of the Theft Act, primarily because the amount of gold available to be earned could never be exhausted, and thus no one was stealing from anyone else. The prosecution appealed.

The Court of Appeal’s Reasoning

The Court of Appeal set aside on all counts. It stated that there were four preliminary questions: is the gold pieces a chose in action or is it other intangible property (the latter), who is the property of (from both the player’s and Jagex’s views), is it the gold pieces or is it the underlying code (the former), and is the concept of property applied according to civil law criteria (it is not).

On the pure information principle, the Court distinguished between knowledge, which it said cannot be property because it does not exist in the object but in the mind of the individual, and functional digital assets, which exist independently from any individual’s mind, have a real-world trading value and are separate from the code that represents them. Gold is not a pure information. They have an independent existence and have a monetary value because they are functional things.

The Court disagreed with the Judge’s reasoning in regards to rivalrousness. It isn’t about being able to create more gold pieces by new players, it’s about whether the gold pieces already held by a player are rivalrous. These are: when player A uses his/her gold pieces, other players can’t use those pieces, when player A transfers his/her gold pieces, those pieces are not available to other players. The court used an analogy with paper clips, when there are infinite paper clips and none of them are non-rivalrous.

The Court took account of R v Hinks [2001] 2 AC 241 in considering the relationship between criminal law and civil property law – the definition of property in the Theft Act is not the same as the definition in civil property law. A thing may be possessed for a criminal purpose without having to have civil proprietary rights. In Section 4 the words are used at the widest level. The Court also cited the Privy Council’s decision in Attorney General of Hong Kong v Nai-Keung [1987] 1 WLR 1339 and the recent Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal case of Yeates v The King [2025] VSCA 288, which decided that Bitcoin was property under a similar summons to the same court.

The Court also considered the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 which, by section 1, does not prevent a thing, including a digital or electronic thing, from being the subject of personal property rights just because it is not a “thing in possession” or a “thing in action”.

The Connecting Thread: What These Three Cases Establish Together

The combination of AA v Persons Unknown, the Osborne case and Persons Unknown v R is able to create a coherent and developing legal landscape for digital assets in England and Wales. Bitcoin can be the subject of proprietary injunction and restitutionary remedies. NFTs are property that is subject to constructive trust claims and cross-jurisdictional injunctive remedies. Video game gold is a property that can be stolen under Theft Act. The criminal law, the law of equity and the law of restitution are now actively involved in the protection of digital and virtual assets.

The related money laundering charges under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (sections 327 and 329) also affirm that the criminal law regime for the proceeds of financial crimes is now firmly in the mainstream of financial crime enforcement.

Key Compliance Takeaways

At JIN Legal and Regulatory Compliance Consultants, these three cases carry important practical lessons for financial institutions, digital asset service providers, compliance professionals and legal practitioners.

Digital Assets Are Property: Structure Your Compliance Frameworks Accordingly.

The progressive recognition of bitcoin, NFTs, and virtual in-game items as property has a direct impact on regulated entities. Digital assets must be viewed as a property, not just data or access rights to data, in both AML and CFT. As in other property transactions, customer due diligence, transaction monitoring and suspicious activity reporting requirements apply to digital asset transactions.

Proprietary Injunctions Are Available and Regularly Used for Crypto Theft Recovery.

The AA v Persons Unknown and Osbourne cases have established that victims of digital asset theft can and do successfully secure proprietary injunctions in the English courts against unknown persons and/or out of jurisdiction persons. There should be clear procedures in place for financial institutions that hold, custody or process digital assets to respond to an order to freeze or a proprietary injunction issued against them in respect of a customer’s digital assets, and be aware of the obligations that arise on receipt of a freezing or proprietary injunction in relation to a customer’s digital assets.

The Criminal Law Treats Virtual Asset Theft as Theft, Full Stop.

The R v Lakeman case eliminates the last lingering doubt that a virtual asset or digital asset is not theft. Money laundering risks under sections 327 to 329 of POCA 2002 apply to financial institutions that process transactions involving Bitcoin, in-game currency or other virtual assets that are proceeds of any crime involving the theft of such assets. The money laundering events within Lakeman are just a few examples of this in real life: gold to bitcoin, bitcoin to fiat, each is a separate money laundering offence.

Service by NFT and Novel Procedural Mechanisms Are Established Practice.

The acceptance of service by non-fungible token in Osborne and by email in AA v Persons Unknown is a testament to the willingness of the English courts to be flexible in the procedures they apply in the context of digital asset disputes. Regulatory teams that are responsible for the recovery of digital assets must be mindful of the fact that in certain cases novel means of service may be used and that ignorance of service is not a defence.

The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 Is Now in Force.

The third category of property which has been being carved out by the courts is given a statutory basis by section 1 of the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025. The mere absence of the elements of personal property rights, thing in possession and thing in action, is no bar to such rights being applied to any digital or electronic thing. Compliance regimes should also be adjusted to account for this statutory recognition and its ramifications on the treatment of various digital assets, including in-game assets, NFTs, and virtual currencies, as well as tokens.

Ransom Payments in Cryptocurrency Create Recoverable Property Interests.

The AA v persons unknown case came from a ransomware payment, and established that Bitcoin ransom is still property, which can be recovered in the English courts. If institutions have cyber risk policies or are advising clients on ransomware response, they need to make sure that any cryptocurrency ransom payment is treated as an asset that can be recovered, and not as an unavoidable expense. Consult with legal counsel who has experience with digital asset litigation at initial stages of the case.

Prepared by JIN Legal & Regulatory Compliance Consultants

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This alert is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.