The United States Government has asked the High Court in Auckland to speed up Kim Dotcom's appeal process.

Photo: AFP

In December, Mr Dotcom and his former colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato were ruled eligible for extradition to the US, but have appealed against the ruling.

The US has been trying to extradite the men since 2012, when they were arrested in a raid on Mr Dotcom's mansion. They are charged with copyright infringement, money-laundering and racketeering related to their file-sharing website Megaupload.

Lawyers for the US were at the High Court in Auckland today, where they asked Justice Asher to give the appeal priority and set an early date for the hearing.

Justice Asher declined that request but set a date for August.

He said that would enable him to release a judgement before Christmas.

Lawyers for the Mr Dotcom have vowed to appeal the charges he is facing and predict the case will go all the way to the Supreme Court.