[9] 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.
[22] 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.
[25][26] Some of the emails contained unencrypted Excel spreadsheets, listing the names and addresses of people that ACS:Law had accused of illegally sharing media.
Graham criticised ACS:Law for having computer security measures that "were barely fit for purpose in a person's home environment, let alone a business handling such sensitive details."
[17] Through a statement read to court on 24 January 2011, Crossley announced that he was withdrawing from pursuing claims against alleged illegal file sharers, citing criminal attacks and bomb threats as reasons.
[3] On 8 February 2011, Judge Birss told ACS:Law that the claims which had been brought to court could not be discontinued without the permission of the copyright holders, and a further hearing was set for 16 March.
[35] In July 2011, it was reported that some people in Greece had received emails purporting to come from ACS:Law, accusing them of file sharing and demanding payments of £1665.
[38] He went on to work for Warren's Law and Advocacy, but is now practising again with his new company St Paul's Solicitors where he continues to deal with speculative invoicing cases along with data protection offences.
[citation needed] As well as the investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, complaints have also been received by The Law Society[39] and the Consumer Action Group.
[40] ACS:Law identify suspected copyright infringement through peer-to-peer file sharing by the IP address of the internet user's connection.
[15] A study by the ISP TalkTalk showed that unsecured Wi-Fi networks can easily be accessed without permission, leading to innocent users being accused of activity carried out by a third party.
The only records of successful court cases which ACS:Law relied upon for its letter writing campaign in relation to copyright infringement through peer-to-peer file sharing were won by default when the defendants failed to appear.
[15] In December 2010, Judge Colin Birss QC rejected eight attempts by ACS:Law to seek default judgements in the Patents County Court.
Citing issues including the failure to establish the age of the persons who might have downloaded the material, Birss stated: "In all these circumstances, a default judgment arrived at without notice by means of an essentially administrative procedure, even one restricted to a financial claim, seems to me to be capable of working real injustice.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said "our view is that legal action is best reserved for the most persistent or serious offenders - rather than widely used as a first response", adding that they would not be adopting the tactics of ACS:Law.