A New Zealand court has found in favor of Kim Dotcom’s attempt to halt the American government forfeiture of his New Zealand-held assets.

The Wednesday decision by the High Court of New Zealand, Auckland Registry, essentially found that because Dotcom lost the civil forfeiture case by default judgment in March 2015, under an American legal theory known as the "doctrine of fugitive disentitlement," and that New Zealand law did not recognize such a concept, then his assets should not be handed over. In recent months, the American government has tried to work with its New Zealand counterparts to have this forfeiture enforced.

"This is a blow to the [United States government] strategy designed to starve me out," Dotcom, the embattled Megaupload founder, e-mailed Ars early Wednesday morning.

The judgment throws a significant wrench into the civil forfeiture case that United States federal prosecutors brought in July 2014. The New Zealand decision will almost certainly be appealed to the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, and then possibly up to the Supreme Court of New Zealand—a process that could take many months.

In the US civil forfeiture case, which was brought 18 months after the initial criminal charges, prosecutors sought to seize an extensive list of seized assets, including millions of dollars in various seized bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand, multiple cars, four jet skis, the Dotcom mansion, several luxury cars, two 108-inch TVs, three 82-inch TVs, a $10,000 watch, and a photograph by Olaf Mueller worth over $100,000.

Dotcom’s chief global counsel agreed with his client’s assessment: "We are grateful that the New Zealand court ruled in favor of fairness, natural justice, and due process today by stopping US efforts to take Kim Dotcom's New Zealand assets for doing nothing more than opposing extradition to the United States—a country he has never been to," Ira Rothken told Ars by text message early Wednesday morning.

So who's a fugitive, after all?

A federal judge in Virginia presiding over the civil case issued a default judgment back in March, essentially agreeing with the government’s argument on the " doctrine of fugitive disentitlement ."

That idea posits that if a defendant has fled the country to evade prosecution, then he or she cannot make a claim to the assets that the government wants to seize under civil forfeiture. But as the Dotcom legal team claims, the US cannot use its legal system to seize assets abroad, nor can Dotcom be considered a fugitive if he has never set foot in the United States.

"Here, the plaintiffs are New Zealand residents who are exercising their right to resist extradition," High Court Judge Rebecca Ellis wrote in the Wednesday decision.

The American civil forfeiture case is related to, but distinct from, the dozen American criminal charges of copyright infringement, racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering that Dotcom faces. Dotcom has been fighting extradition from his residence in New Zealand since he was arrested at his home in January 2012 and then later released on bail.

In total, American authorities allege that the "Mega Conspiracy… generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and caused more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners." For his part, Dotcom has long maintained that Megaupload was no different from any other cloud storage firm, like Google or Dropbox, and that he made good faith efforts to remove infringing content.

The multiple legal cases that Dotcom faces in the United States have largely been put on hold as Dotcom continues to fight extradition in New Zealand—currently scheduled for September 2015, around two months before he would become eligible for New Zealand citizenship.