On the 19 Nov 09 ACS Law working for a German company called Digprotect
http://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?company=digiprotect, received a court order (Norwich Pharmacal Order)(NPO), which ordered many british ISP's to reveal names and addresses of customers accused of uploading files on P2P networks.
This law firm sent letters to all ISP's asking them not to contest the court case in the high court in London. All ISP's except Talk Talk sent a letter stating that they would not contest the order. Talk Talk sent a letter stating that they would not comply and were subsequently removed from the case. Because of this the "Evidence" that Digiprotect and ACS Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS:Law had was not tested. perhaps if it was tested it would be seen as very flimsy evidence, as the only published proof is an IP Address, this has been proved time and again that an IP address is not linked to a person.
As a part of the NPO, the lawfirm ACS Law must provide a report to each of the ISP's Listed, BE Unlimited, BT, O2 Telefonica, and PlusNet, within 6 months of the date of disclosure of the names and addresses. this report must contain the following,
1. how many names and addresses were provided by each ISP
2. how many of these have had legal proceding taken against them.
So far only PlusNet have received this report, however they have decided not to reveal any details and so I have decided to post this question on this forum. the report is due to BE unlimited and O2 Telefonica on 19 Sep 10, 6 months from the date of disclosure of 19 Mar 10, and if O2 reveal that the report contains what we all think, ie many names and addresses given to ACS Law but NONE taken to court, then it will be very difficult to get the high court to award another NPO, as the definition of an NPO is
Term: Norwich Pharmacal Order
1.
A court has jurisdiction to order persons who have information that may lead to the identification of the defendant to disclose that the information. Accordingly, unidentified defendants’ identities may be made the subject of disclosure by a court in England.
Other means of obtaining evidence is usually available to identify a defendant and those means ought to exhausted before resorting to the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction. A court will not exercise the jurisdiction unless the result would be that the claimant is left in a position where proceedings cannot be commenced against a named defendant. The person seeking the court order must have a genuine intention of commencing proceedings.
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This is clearly not what ACS Law have been using these Court Orders for, as todate, they have sent thousands of letters demanding many hundreds of pounds for alledged copyright infringement and have taken no one to court(that we know of). the practice has been condemmed by Watchdog, the Lords in the House of Lords, BBC The One show, O2,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8570913.stmACS Law are currently under investigation by the SRA, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, they SRA have received so many complaints that they have had to delay making any decisions until they have investigated all complaints.
I ask O2 to publish the report when it receives it, and if it does not receive it by the 19 Sep 10, then they should say so as ACS Law will be in contempt of the court order dated 19 Nov 09. this is O2's chance to put a stop to this practice, and show once and for all that the law firms engaged in this practice (ACS:Law, Gallant McMillan, Ballinas Ollinas, Davenport-Lyons, Tilly Bailly and Irvine) are/were only in this for the money.
