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.
Firm
The main partner of the firm, and its only registered solicitor, was Andrew Jonathan Crossley. Crossley was found guilty of conduct unbefitting a solicitor by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2012. In 2012 he was suspended from practicing as a solicitor for two years. Crossley was declared bankrupt by the High Court in London on 20 May 2011. Crossley is now a consultant solicitor at Taylor Rose.
Action against suspected copyright infringement
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".
Solicitors Regulation Authority investigation and tribunal
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.
In August 2010, the SRA ruled that ACS:Law had "a case to answer" regarding its campaign against suspected copyright infringement, and would refer the case to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
Crossley engaged the services of Andrew Hopper QC who, according to Crossley "literally wrote the SRA rules", to assist in his defence against the SRA/SDT. In a letter to the Law Society Gazette, Crossley complained about "the repeated attempts [of ACS:Law's critics] to whip up hysteria and public outcry" regarding ACS:Law's action. Crossley had been declared bankrupt and represented himself at subsequent hearings before the SDT.
On 16 January 2012, the SDT found Crossley guilty on seven charges, suspended him from practicing law for two years and ordered him to pay £76,326.55 in costs. A spokesman for the SRA commented "Some of those affected were vulnerable members of the public and this matter has caused them significant distress." Crossley was allowed to work as a solicitor again from 2013 subject to conditions including a ban from owning or running a law practice.
Investigation by the Information Commissioner
On 21 September 2010, the website of ACS:Law was subjected to a DDoS attack suspected to be coordinated by online group Anonymous as part of Operation Payback. When asked about the attacks, Crossley said: "It was only down for a few hours. I have far more concern over the fact of my train turning up 10 minutes late or having to queue for a coffee than them wasting my time with this sort of rubbish."
When the site came back online, a 350MB file which was a backup of the site was visible to anyone for a short period of time. The backup, which included copies of emails sent by the firm, was downloaded and made available as a torrent. Some of the emails contained unencrypted Excel spreadsheets, listing the names and addresses of people that ACS:Law had accused of illegally sharing media. One contained over 5,300 Sky broadband customers whom they had accused of illegally sharing pornography, while another contained the details of 8,000 Sky customers and 400 Plusnet customers accused of infringing the copyright on music by sharing it on peer-to-peer networks. This alleged breach of the Data Protection Act became part of an investigation into ACS:Law by the Information Commissioner's Office.