ACS:Law Boss Andrew Crossley Breached Solicitor's Code, 'Brought The Legal Profession Into Disrepute'

from the paying-attention dept

To the various lawyers in the US who have been jumping on the mass copyright infringement/pre-settlement shakedown bandwagon, you might want to pay attention to what's happening in the UK, where the guy who really made this strategy famous has been found to have breached the solicitors code of conduct with these lawsuits. Yes, ACS:Law's Andrew Crossley has not received a kind reaction from the judge who was already troubled by the way these cases had played out:

Ruling in the Patents County Court in London on Monday, Judge Birss QC described ACS:Law's pursuit of illegal filesharers as "amateurish and slipshod" and said it had "brought the legal profession into disrepute".

Birss said Crossley had breached the solicitors code of conduct because he was responsible for the licence agreement between Media CAT and the original copyright holders, and stood to profit from it. The code of conduct states that "you must not enter into an arrangement to receive a contingency fee for work done in prosecuting or defending any contentious proceedings" before the court.

The judge said: "I am quite satisfied to the standard necessary for this stage of a wasted costs application that Mr Crossley is responsible for the basic agreements [the licence agreements between Media CAT and original copyright holders] and has thereby acted in breach of the solicitors rule 2.04.

"In my judgment, the combination of Mr Crossley's revenue sharing arrangements and his service of the notices of discontinuance serves to illustrate the dangers of such a revenue sharing arrangement and has, prima facie, brought the legal profession into disrepute. It may be better placed under the revenue sharing heading in this judgment but it is, prima facie, improper conduct in any event."

It's nice to see court systems on both sides of the ocean not taking kindly to this sort of clear abuse of the judicial system as a part of a business model.

Filed Under: andrew crossley, uk
Companies: acs:law

Mysterious Non-Company 'Helping' ACS:Law Collect Fines Now Says Forget The Whole Thing

from the moving-on... dept

As ACS:Law's legal mistakes mount, there was a recent story about how the company had passed on some collections efforts to a firm called GCB, but the details suggested another total screwup. People tracked GCB back to an accounting firm, which quickly put on their website that while GCB was formed by it, it "appears to be being misused by some third party," and that it was "taking urgent steps" to end this. The details suggested some odd maneuverings:

When PC Pro spoke to McLean Reid partner John Champion, he told us that GCB had been registered at that address on behalf of one his clients, David Fisher.

Champion said that Fisher had lent his dormant company to an associate, who had been collecting the file-sharing money without his knowledge. "He just decided to help a friend out," Champion said. "He wanted a dormant company, and he said 'Oh I've got one that's not doing anything, you can have that'."

"I know Dave Fisher is put down as a director [of GCB], [but] this activity was done without him knowing what activity was happening," Champion added. "I think he's taking steps to make sure all that money's been repaid."

The "friend"? Yeah, according to PCPro, it turns out that it was Andrew Crossley, the guy from ACS:Law. Either way, it seems that all this attention has scared Fisher off. An anonymous tipster alerts us to the news that if you call the phone number that GCB tells you to call to pay up, you get the following message:

"If you have received a letter from GCB Ltd please disregard this letter as GCB is no longer pursuing the matter stated in the letter."

Seems like Crossley and ACS:Law are going to have to try the next option.

Filed Under: andrew crossley, copyright, fines, shakedowns, uk
Companies: acs:law, gcb

'Pre-Settlement' Shakedown By ACS:Law Doesn't Seem Quite So Profitable

from the perhaps-not-such-a-good-business dept

Since late last week, people have been submitting the news that ACS:Law's email archives were revealed and spread widely across the internet late last week. Once again, I find this action somewhat troubling. Like the DDoS attacks that resulted in this leak, I do worry about the backlash that it creates, and I find it a bit shameful that people feel the need to stoop to dirty tricks to try to prove a point or make a statement. I've been debating whether it's worth reporting about the leak at all, or any of what's been found out, and I'll certainly skip over the mundane or merely salacious bits. However, some of the information that's being reported is important in understanding how these "pre-settlement or we'll sue" businesses work, and that's information worth sharing.

ACS:Law, of course, was one of the first, and certainly the most well-known, of the law firms practicing this form of "legal threats as a business model." Since then, however, many other law firms (in Europe and the US) have jumped into the game with much fanfare. ACS:Law's principle, Andrew Crossley, regularly bragged about how profitable his enterprise was, and that certainly was likely some of the thinking behind others trying to get in on the action. However, it appears that, from the data gleaned in the leaked emails, the effort really hasn't been all that profitable.

TorrentFreak has a detailed breakdown showing not only what percentage of people actually responded or paid up to the threat letters, but also what the revenue splits were, and how much everyone made -- covering a period of two years. The results are seen below:

Client	Money Recovered	Paid to Client	Paid to monitoring company	Paid to Firm
Digiprotect	£346,607.90	£151,625.86	£45,060.21	£131,048.38
Topware	£68,127.47	£10,880.48	£10,881.48	£23,551.18
Techland	£22,474.85	£795.93	£590.00	£2,228.43
Reality Pump	£34,866.90	£3519.16	£4,645.28	£7,628.20
Media C.A.T	£164,681.00	£35,350.57	£15,066.06	£55,957.20
Total	£636,758.22	£202,172.00	£76,243.03	£220,413.39

If this truly is an accurate accounting of the money collected and split up, it's really not that impressive. The total amount collected is just a smidgen over $1 million dollars, which means an average of about $500,000 per year. And while it's noteworthy that the law firm ends up with more than the actual copyright holder (funny how that works, huh?), the numbers indicate that Crossley's firm brought in about $350,000 in revenue to his firm over two years -- or about $175,000 per year. It's worth pointing out that Crossley did not appear to work alone, but had at least some staff, so you'd have to reduce that even further -- and you're basically talking about what your average young attorney can make on a job. It's not bad, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not exactly rolling in the dough. A report from a few years ago about UK starting legal salaries for lawyers fresh out of school put the amount at £63,000 to £65,000 (basically, around $100,000 US), and noted that it was rising quickly. So depending on Crossley's costs for rent, staff and other expenses, it sounds like he might be making a bit over what a recent law school grad can make.

That said, it's also worth pointing out that the biggest copycat firm in the US, which goes by the name US Copyright Group, appears to be sending out a much higher number of letters early on and is asking for noticeably higher fees to "settle," though it's also filing an actual lawsuit (which entails additional costs). ACS:Law, of course, is famous for sending out letters and never actually suing, which helps keep its costs lower.

Filed Under: andrew crossley, business model, copyright, pre-settlement letters
Companies: acs:law

ACS:Law To Face Disciplinary Tribunal

from the face-the-law dept

Earlier this year, we noted that two lawyers from Davenport Lyons, who were among the first law firms to dive into the mass automated "pay us or we'll sue" pre-settlement letter business with copyright infringement claims, were facing disciplinary action in the UK for those activities. What seemed odd was why the focus was on Davenport Lyons who had apparently gotten out of the game quite a while back. Instead, the work was picked up by ACS:Law who appeared to be using very similar material to what Davenport Lyons had used -- though, I still don't believe anyone has made the direct connection between the two. Still, it seemed odd that ACS:Law was free to continue its campaigns.

Apparently the wheels of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal turns slowly in the UK, but they get there eventually. It's been announced that ACS:Law's Andrew Crossley will now have to face the tribunal (something he's done in the past, though on unrelated issues). Now, when can we expect to see the US versions of this, mainly US Copyright Group, face some sort of disciplinary action in the US?

Filed Under: andrew crossley, discipline, tribunal, uk
Companies: acs:law