29 May 2014

Hollywood chasing Dotcom's assets

10:10 pm on 29 May 2014

Five of Hollywood's biggest movie studios are fighting to get Kim Dotcom's New Zealand assets frozen.

Papers have been filed against Mr Dotcom in the High Court in Auckland and listed for the first time on Thursday. He faces similar action in the United States.

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Kim Dotcom. Photo: RNZ

The case between 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros and Mr Dotcom did not go ahead as planned on Thursday morning, as his his legal team needed more time to prepare.

The Motion Picture Association told Radio New Zealand News it believes there is a real and imminent risk that Mr Dotcom will dissipate his assets if they do not remain frozen.

In April this year, the High Court granted Mr Dotcom the rights to his assets including cars, jewellery, $1 million in cash and $3.6 million in property.

The Crown is appealing against that decision - but those are the same assets the movie studios want frozen.

In the legal challenge lodged in the US, the studios allege that Mr Dotcom's now defunct site MegaUpload facilitated and profited from a massive copyright infringement of movies and TV shows.

The New Zealand case is before the courts again next week.