ACS:Law settles out of court with defendants represented by Ralli

Some defendants caught up in ACS Law's speculative invoicing scheme have agreed a settlement with the company.

Law firm Ralli said that all parties, which included those people it was representing had settled on "a basis confidential between the parties" . But it is still currently advising consumers who received letters accusing them of copyright infringement.

Ralli said the letters sent by a variety of law firms and other entities, which employed monitoring companies to find out what files were being shared over file sharing networks, amounted to harassment. And now the original claims have been settled the firm said its class action can now move forward.

Michael Forrester, a solicitor in Ralli's Intellectual Property and Information Technology team, commented: "We considered from an early stage that these actions against our clients were not brought correctly. The Judgment and eventual settlement supports our view in all material respects.

"We are dealing with cases where consumers have explained how they cannot possibly have uploaded or downloaded copyright protected material, but they are still pursued.

"The legal basis for the claims made against these alleged file sharers involves complex legal and technical principles. These are extremely difficult for a lay person to understand and can lead to an innocent person being pursued.

"It can be incredibly upsetting for people to receive these letters and they may well have a claim in harassment, so we are urging them to come forward."

Andrew Crossley, sole proprietor of ACS Law, began sending letters to alleged illegal file sharers as long ago as 2007. Thousands of letters were sent but at the end of last year, Crossley decided to take 27 test cases to court in order to get a default judgement.

However after a number of shambolic hearings held at the Patents Court along with claimant, Media Cat, Crossley lost.

Judge Colin Birss who presided over the hearings said at one point: "Let me be absolutely straight. I am getting the distinct impression that with every twist and turn, it appears the claimant is trying to avoid judicial scrutiny."

In his ruling, he pointed out that the process followed by the Media Cat and ACS Law were "based on untested legal and factual propositions and issues of technology" and that the letters sent to thousands of consumers "materially overstates the untested merits of Media Cat Ltd's approach.

"ACS Law's interest is specifically mentioned... because of course they receive 65 per cent of the revenues from the letter writing exercise. In fact Media Cat's financial interest is much less than that of ACS Law.

"Whether it was intended to or not, I cannot imagine a system better designed to create disincentives to test the issues in court. Why take cases to court and test the assertions when one can just write more letters and collect payments from a proportion of the recipients?"

Ralli is still giving advice to people who have received letters accusing them of illegal file sharing, offering free assessments and can be emailed at harassment@ralli.co.uk.

While some people's worries may be over, Andrew Crossley's are not. He closed ACS Law, was fined by the Information Commissioner's Office and has been declared bankrupt. He also faces six charges in October at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

These charges allege that Crossley allowed his independence to be compromised, acted contrary to the best interests of his clients and in a way that was likely to diminish the trust the public places in him or in the legal profession.

It is also alleged that he entered into arrangements to receive contingency fees for work done in prosecuting or defending contentious proceedings before the Courts of England and Wales except as permitted by statute or the common law.

Three other charges include acting where there was a conflict of interest in circumstances not permitted, in particular because there was a conflict with those of his clients; using his position as a solicitor to take or attempt to take unfair advantage of other persons being recipients of letters of claim either for his own benefit or for the benefit of his clients; and acting without integrity in that he provided false information in statements made to the Court.