Mark Karpeles, principal and CEO of the bankrupt Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, is beyond the reach of US courts, his lawyer told a Chicago court where Karpeles and his company are being sued by American depositors, according to a Bloomberg report.

Defense lawyer Eric Macey said that Karpeles, who was born in France and now lives in Japan, has never been to the U.S., and was never properly served with the complaint that started the lawsuit.

According to Macey, Karpeles along with Tibanne KK, one of his other companies which is also named in the lawsuit, will submit papers asking U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman to rule that he has no jurisdiction over them.

The world's largest Bitcoin exchange suddenly went offline in late February without warning. A few days later Karpeles announced they were filing for bankruptcy protection after losing nearly 750,000 of their customers' Bitcoins and 100,000 of their own.

In an interesting turn of events last month, the company said they found 200,000 missing Bitcoins in an old-format virtual wallet. Although the company claims that the remaining Bitcoins were stolen, many users believe that Karpeles, along with insiders, may have committed fraud.