Kim Dotcom is fighting an order that he open his books to lawyers for the United States entertainment giants who say he owes them more than $100 million for copyright infringement.

Dotcom's funding of the Internet Party and other talk about making substantial payments led a High Court judge to accept there was danger he was dissipating his assets before the corporations had a chance to claim damages from him.

The Court of Appeal this afternoon reserved its decision on Dotcom's application that he should not have to comply with the court-ordered asset disclosure until the result of his full appeal against disclosure is known.

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The appeal hearing is set for October 9 but he currently has to list the nature, location and value of his assets by September 5. In the meantime that list would stay with the lawyers who would have to ask for further court orders if they wanted to disclose it to their entertainment industry clients.

The companies that control five major entertainment studios - Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Disney, Universal City, and Warner Bros - have started civil proceedings in the US claiming more than $100 million for breach of copyright.

That case is on hold while US criminal proceedings, as a result of complaints from the same corporations, grind on towards an extradition hearing.

Dotcom's assets are supposed to be frozen pending the outcome of the extradition case but the corporations say that recently Dotcom disclosed he had access to substantial funds that were not captured by freezing orders.

As a result a judge in the High Court at Auckland ordered him to disclose the nature, location and value of all his assets worldwide, whether held in his own name or not.

At the hearing to stall that order taking effect Dotcom's lawyer Tracey Walker told the Court of Appeal today that she was speaking hypothetically in saying a restraining order registered in New Zealand in January 2012 covered specified assets he had at that time but would not cover assets he had acquired since.

The High Court judge said the value of the 2012 assets was put at $11.8 million.

Further assets of the Dotcom company, Megaupload, are frozen in Hong Kong.

Walker said the position of the US parties was well protected by the assets already frozen here and in Hong Kong and it was a breach of Dotcom's right to privacy to make him disclose more.

It was a point of principle, she said.

Several legal points were to be argued at the appeal in October and Dotcom should not have to hand over a list of his assets yet, Walker said.

Lawyer Jack Hodder, appearing for the US entertainment corporations, said the order was intrusive but entirely justified.

They had assumed that the US government would have done a reasonable job of restraining Dotcom's assets in 2012 so it was a surprise to hear Dotcom was donating millions of dollars to a political party and that money must have come from assets that were not frozen.

The High Court had been practical about maintaining Dotcom's confidentiality in the meantime, Hodder said.

- The Dominion Post

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