Brewdog founder wins case against ex who conned him out of Bitcoin
The founder of Brewdog has been awarded £600,000 from a former girlfriend who conned him out of crypto-currency and whom he believes secretly orchestrated a vicious online smear campaign against him.
James Watt, who founded the global craft beer company in 2007, said Emili Ziem, who he said he had a brief relationship with, had told him she could help track down people behind “troll accounts” which were spreading “false and malicious lies” about him on social media.
He claimed that he was “desperate” for the abuse to end and agreed to pay her for her services, transferring her £100,000 worth of Bitcoin in total.
However, he claims it later emerged that Ms Ziem had in fact been one of the perpetrators of the abuse and had been behind an “extremely active troll account” which was part of a dedicated network set up to “bring James down”.
He made the allegations on Tuesday in a post on the business networking site LinkedIn.
In a ruling issued by Edinburgh’s Court of Session, seen by The Telegraph, Ms Ziem, a 29-year-old scientist and model, has been ordered to repay the £100,000 in Bitcoin and pay Mr Watt a further £500,000 in costs.
Mr Watt has been dogged over recent months by claims about his behaviour towards staff members and women, which he has insisted are unfair.
In the online post, he claimed that Ms Ziem has been a source for a major BBC Scotland documentary about Brewdog, which included several negative allegations about the company and Mr Watt.
The BBC insisted she had not been a source for any of the claims in the programme and stood by its journalism.
‘Vindicated’ by court ruling
Mr Watt claimed that “lies” about him had “taken a significant personal toll and been a massive distraction”, but suggested he had been vindicated by the court ruling.
“Ms Ziem said she could help me identify the people responsible for spreading false and malicious lies about me via troll accounts and asked for payment to do so,” Mr Watt said. “I was desperate to stop this horrific abuse, so I paid up.
“She was, in fact, a key part of a network involved in a campaign to do as much damage to me and my business as possible, spreading false and defamatory information with the objective of destroying me personally and damaging our business,” Mr Watt claimed.
The BBC documentary included claims that Brewdog had deployed misleading marketing gimmicks, that Mr Watt presided over a toxic work culture and that some female staff members had been subjected to unwelcome attention from him.
He has lodged a complaint over the documentary, claiming it included “dozens of inaccuracies and false claims”.
The BBC launched its investigation into Brewdog, and also produced a six-part podcast series about the company, when former staff members signed an open letter criticising the company.
Responding to Mr Watt’s claims that Ms Ziem had been a source for its documentary, a spokesman for the BBC said: “Emili Ziem was not a contributor, nor was she a source for any of the claims made in the programme.
“It is not true that claims relating to Mr Watt were wiped from the programme following its original transmission. The BBC stands by its journalism.”
