BrewDog chief executive James Watt has revealed the “considerable distress and anxiety” he suffered during an online smear campaign which also saw him scammed out of £100,000.
Lord Brailsford ruled in his favour at Edinburgh’s Court of Session and ordered Emili Ziem to repay him the money, plus more than £500,000 in expenses.
The judge stated that she conducted a scam which set up fake social media pages to spread damaging online rumours about the brewery boss.
Ziem then conned him into paying £25,000 a time to unmask the ‘trolls’.
They first made contact in 2020 on Instagram and met on several occasions. In May 2021, many of Watt’s Instagram friends received direct messages about him from an account under the name Laura Keller, stating that he had “misled” women.
Some of the allegations accused him of criminality which he denied in court.
In a post on LinkedIn, Watt explained: “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 - I was desperate to stop this horrific abuse, so I paid up.
“What we now know, and the court has found, is that she was actually one of the perpetrators and was operating an extremely active troll account against me as part of a dedicated network looking to ‘take James down’ (her words).
“She gave me knowingly false information with the sole intention of deceiving me into agreeing to pay her - 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.“
After paying her four times, Watt grew suspicious and hired a cyber private detective who exposed Ziem as being behind the accounts.
The Sun reported that Michael Roberts, who specialises in digital forensic work, sent the Laura Keller account a message which included a trip wire link which would identify where the message was opened.
Watt’s legal claim outlined the fees he paid out to get to the bottom of the plot, including £236,000 to Roberts, along with £105,000 for other digital forensics work.
Other court fees to confirm the identity of Ziem - who now lives in Norway - totalled £172,000.
On 2 September a judgement was issued by Lord Brailsford ruling in Watt’s favour.
It stated: “That the contract or other arrangement by which the pursuer agreed to transfer to the defender the Bitcoin assets was induced by fraudulent misrepresentation made by the defender.”
The ruling continued that Ziem must transfer the Bitcoin back to Watt - who has promised to give it to charity.
On LinkedIn, he wrote: “This person, whom the court has now found to be a fraud, was also a source for the BBC attack on BrewDog, which had such a demoralising impact on our 2,800 people - this is worth remembering while the BBC continues to advertise its attacks on us across its multiple platforms.
“This has been a massive distraction for me with all the challenges we face as a business in a struggling economy, but I hope you understand that it was incumbent on me to defend my reputation in the face of relentless hostility.“
The Disclosure documentary made several claims about Watt's conduct with employees and abuses of power while the Ellon-based company grew over the last 15 years.
The BBC has since deleted various claims made in the documentary, while Watt admitted for his part that he had pushed staff “too far” at times.
BBC Scotland said in a statement: "Emili Ziem was not a contributor, nor was she a source for any of the claims made in the programme."
The Sun stated that Ziem had refused to comment on the outcome of the case.
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