ACS:Law
| Headquarters | London |
|---|---|
| No. of offices | 1 |
| Major practice areas | Civil litigation, commercial litigation, debt and money advice, employment law, intellectual property law |
| Date founded | unknown |
ACS:Law was a United Kingdom law firm specialising in intellectual property law. Prior to 2009, its most notable case was the defence of a British national accused of public indecency in Dubai. The firm is best known for its actions against persons allegedly infringing copyright through peer-to-peer file sharing. The firm ceased pursuing file sharers in January 2011 and ceased trading on 3 February 2011.
The main partner of the firm, and its only registered solicitor, was Andrew Crossley. Crossley was found guilty of conduct unbefitting a solicitor by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) three times, in 2002, 2006 and again in 2012. In 2012 he was suspended from practising as a solicitor for two years. Crossley was declared bankrupt by the High Court in London on 20 May 2011.
ACS:Law first started claims against suspected copyright infringement through peer-to-peer file sharing in May 2009. In November 2009, they announced plans to initiate claims against a further 25,000 individuals; a batch of 10,000 dunning letters were sent out in the first two weeks of January 2010.
ACS:Law say that "the majority" of people choose to settle outside of court rather than fight the claims, but others claim that only 15-40% of people threatened end up paying. According to Crossley, ACS:Law had recovered almost £1 million from suspected copyright infringers by April 2010. In the Patents County Court in January 2011, it was revealed that Crossley took 65% of the money recovered, with only 30% going to copyright holders. One of ACS:Law's clients was the now defunct Frankfurt based company DigiProtect, whose motto was "turn piracy into profit".
In September 2009, complaints made to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) about the conduct of ACS:Law constituted more than 16% of all complaints to the body for the whole month, and the SRA confirmed that the firm was under investigation. By July 2010, the SRA had received a record 418 official complaints from members of the public.
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