In 2003 Kim Dotcom made the decision to move his business HQ and operations to Hong Kong with MegaUpload. This was the case until January 2011 when his Hong Kong based property and offices were raided by police officers working under the direction of the FBI. Charges of violating copyrights, racketeering and money laundering were all brought on him and his website and assets were seized indefinitely.
“We were in the process of preparing a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange and the valuation of our company was over $US2 billion. Fortunately, the US government will have to indemnify Hong Kong for any damages awarded to us”
Kim Dotcom has already won permission to sue New Zealand’s authorities for the raid on his home and now he is doing the same to Hong Kong’s authorities for the raid on his offices. Despite his bad experiences with Hong Kong he still wants to keep his offices there for his new website Mega.co.nz and other related business ventures such as Megabox, Megamovie and Megakey.
Unsurprisingly the reason why Kim Dotcom is planning to stay in Hong Kong is tax-related, and he has also cited Singapore as another potential alternative should Hong Kong not work out again.
Megaupload has been shut since January 2011 and its successor Mega.co.nz was launched in January 2013. Kim Dotcom’s new site “Mega” has been designed so that there is no legal basis for anyone to require its shut down and by shutting Mega down, other legitimate sites such as Dropbox and Box.net would be equally as vulnerable by that precedent.
He is a genius, point!