A power struggle culminating in two legal battles—one civil, one criminal—over who should control a portion of the cryptocurrency donations made in support of the Ottawa convoy protests has ended with police transferring digital assets seized in a raid to an escrow agent.

What happened: On Feb. 28, Ottawa resident Nicholas St. Louis and other people involved in fundraising for the protests against COVID-19 restrictions agreed to hand cryptocurrency over to the escrow agent, in case a court rules it should be used to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit. St. Louis was involved in the HonkHonk Hodl Bitcoin fundraiser and retained the “private keys,” or passwords, to some of the 21 bitcoins (worth just over $1 million) raised as part of the campaign.

According to an affidavit St. Louis signed Monday, police executed a search warrant at his apartment less than an hour after lawyers for the various parties in the civil suit agreed to a court order moving the cryptocurrency to an escrow agent. St. Louis alleges police told him they believe he committed mischief, money laundering and possession of property obtained by crime—allegations he denies—seized his electronics and other property, and compelled him to provide the private keys to bitcoins worth just over $15,000.

A document filed in court by Norman Groot, the lawyer for the defendants in the civil suit, alleges the search warrant’s purpose and timing was to prevent St. Louis from transferring the cryptocurrency to the escrow agent and out of the control of a concurrent criminal investigation. “The police told St. Louis while executing their warrant that ‘criminal law trumps civil law.’ Really?” the document reads.

In a court hearing this afternoon, Melissa Adams, a lawyer for the Ontario attorney general, said police have now given the private keys to the escrow agent and “effectively given up control to the civil process.”

Why it matters: The jurisdictional tussle demonstrates how cryptocurrency can complicate legal proceedings. Courts can direct banks and crowdfunding platforms like GiveSendGo to freeze or surrender money caught up in civil or criminal litigation. Cryptocurrency held in so-called non-custodial wallets, such as the ones St. Louis controlled, requires the cooperation of the person in possession of the “private keys,” or passwords—which, as police demonstrated, can sometimes be obtained under duress.

The outcome also matters deeply to St. Louis, who was put in a serious legal conundrum. An email from criminal defence lawyer Christopher Assié filed in court says St. Louis could be held in contempt of court for providing the private keys to the police, because he was separately compelled by a court order to provide them to the escrow agent.

What’s next: The court has extended a Mareva injunction related to the proposed class action lawsuit freezing some of the funds, which will be in place until March 31. The criminal investigation is ongoing.