The Patents County Court struck out 27 alleged unlawful filesharing actions brought by London firm ACS:Law on behalf of its clients Media CAT yesterday.

His Honour Judge Birss is now considering how much ACS:Law and Media CAT should pay in wasted costs, after accepting the submission made on behalf of the defendants that the two organisations had wasted the court’s time in starting actions that they had no intention of pursuing to trial.

The cases were brought after ACS:Law wrote letters to thousands of individuals, alleging that they had unlawfully downloaded copyrighted media on ‘peer to peer’ networks over the internet.

The letters threatened court action if the recipients did not make payments of around £500 to settle the claims of alleged copyright infringement.

Media CAT, a company that pursued alleged infringements on behalf of the owners of copyrighted material, including pornographic films, and its lawyers ACS:Law attempted to discontinue the proceedings earlier in the year.

The judge refused to allow the proceedings to be dropped, stating that he got the impression that the claimants were seeking to avoid judicial scrutiny of the claims.

He adjourned the case to allow the owners of the copyrighted material in question to attend if they wished to pursue the actions against the defendants.

However, no other parties attended this week’s hearing, and the actions against the defendants were struck out. National firm Ralli represented a number of the defendants, and is currently advising hundreds of people who claim that letters received from law firms alleging copyright infringement amount to harassment.

Michael Forrester, intellectual property partner at the firm, said: ‘Our clients are extremely pleased that these matters have finally come to a close. They have always maintained that they did not infringe copyright in the works alleged, and can now put the matter behind them.’

Andrew Crossley, sole principal at ACS:Law, closed his firm on 3 February 2011. He withdrew from the case in January, citing threats to his life over his involvement in the matter.

It is understood that lawyers representing ACS:Law’s insurers were present at the hearing, but that has not been confirmed.

A spokesman for the Solicitors Regulation Authority said disciplinary proceedings were lodged against Crossley this week, following complaints made about the letters sent out by his firm.

Media CAT is also understood to have closed.