He then complained to the Human Rights Review Tribunal, which found it was wrong for the Crown to transfer the requests to the Attorney-General and to refuse the requests.
It awarded Dotcom $90,000 damages, $60,000 for injury to feelings, and $30,000 for loss of a benefit - that being the information that he sought.
But in a decision released in October last year, the High Court said there was a "proper and lawful purpose for the transfer of the requests and that, because of the insistence that all 52 requests were required to be responded to urgently, on the ground that the information sought was relevant to the eligibility proceedings, they were vexatious".
It also said it would not have upheld the awards of damages for lost benefit and loss of dignity or injury to feelings.
At the four-day appeal hearing, the lawyer for the Attorney-General, Victoria Casey, told the High Court at Wellington the transfer of the requests was "orthodox and sensible", and that the tribunal had taken the wrong approach to deciding whether the requests were vexatious.
There was also "no evidential basis" for the $30,000 award for loss of a benefit, because Dotcom could have reapplied for the information under another part of the Privacy Act.
Casey also challenged the $60,000 award for injury to feelings, saying the requests were taken seriously and dealt with respectfully.
Dotcom's lawyer, Ron Mansfield, today appeared in the High Court at Wellington seeking leave to appeal the decision.
He raised questions about whether Dotcom's two requests - for information and for urgency - should be dealt with as one request, and whether the court was correct in saying transferring the information to another agency was allowed.
"It is a matter of general public importance that this issue is resolved," Mansfield said.
"It goes to whether an agency can transfer a request for information to, effectively, counsel who are involved in litigation."
He said urgency was never a basis on which the matter could be transferred to the Attorney-General.
Casey said Mansfield's argument that the urgency request was not relevant to whether the request was vexatious was an "untenable" position to pursue.
"It cannot be argued that, under any circumstances, in any case, urgency is not relevant," she said.
The points Mansfield raised "did not meet the test for general public importance".
Justice Peter Churchman reserved his decision.
Dotcom has a number of matters going through the courts, including his battle against extradition.
The Court of Appeal upheld a decision in July that Dotcom could be extradited to the United States to face criminal copyright charges.
The Queenstown-based millionaire has vowed to appeal that decision in the Supreme Court.
