In an injunction order dated 15 February, US District Judge Jeffrey White ordered the website, known as Wikileaks.org to be shut down, following a complaint from the bank Julius Baer & Co. and its Cayman Islands subsidiary.

Wikileaks had published numerous documents, reportedly handed over by an ex-employee of the banks's Cayman subsidiary, which supposedly detailed how it had taken part in tax evasion and money laundering in the Caribbean jurisdiction - claims denied by the bank. It is also believed that the bank was concerned that the information published on the Wikileaks website could be prejudicial to an ongoing court case in Switzerland.

In issuing his ruling, Judge White stated that "immediate harm will result to (the bank) in the absence of injunctive relief".

In what is being seen by observers as a controversial decision, Judge White also ordered that the California web hosting company Dynadot clear and remove records from Wikileaks and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website "or any other website or server other than a blank page", until the court can review the case further.

His ruling also ordered Dynadot to produce "all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account," in addition to "IP addresses and associated data used by any person...who accessed the account for the domain name".

According to the BBC, Wikileaks says that it was not represented at the hearing because it was "given only hours notice" via e-mail. It also argues that the order breaches its constitutional rights in the US under the First Amendment, and has vowed to continue publishing.

"In fact, given the level of suppression involved in this case, Wikileaks will step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices," the group declared in a statement published by the AFP news agency.

The Wikileaks website was founded in 2006 by "Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa". It allowed users to post anonymously and claims to have published more than 1.2 million documents since launching.