US court has no jurisdiction over Mt. Gox CEO, lawyer says

[Himanshu Arora]

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.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/56323-us-court-has-no-jurisdiction-over-mt-gox-ceo-lawyer-says.html

 

[RzmmDX]

Congrats Bitcoin, you are now a legitimate currency.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Well if the courts can't touch him why not abduct him, use 'alternative interrogation methods' to get him to spill the beans then make sure his body is never found. I'm sure there are a good few disgruntled ex-Bitcoin owners willing to resort to that draconian method. If it works for the drug cartels why not ripped off Bitcoin owners as well.

 

[GhostRyder]

Well if the courts can't touch him why not abduct him, use 'alternative interrogation methods' to get him to spill the beans then make sure his body is never found. I'm sure there are a good few disgruntled ex-Bitcoin owners willing to resort to that draconian method. If it works for the drug cartels why not ripped off Bitcoin owners as well.

Indeed, the whole thing sounds like to much of a convenience with how this all happened. I mean in all honesty if the rumors turned to be truth, then it would be a very stupid way to try and steal the coins since they can find the code these coins hold and track them eventually. The other thing is that if they really were stolen, then this company deserves all the problems its facing for not protecting its systems properly. I mean in all honesty, you should not be able to lose 700k bitcoins that fast without someone noticing if your as big of a company as you say. The fact that they even later found 200k of the coins in an old wallet makes them look more fraudulent and foolish than ever.

I feel more is going to come of this later, but this guy is trying to avoid the law as it seems and its pretty clear he knows more than hes letting on.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Indeed, the whole thing sounds like to much of a convenience with how this all happened. I mean in all honesty if the rumors turned to be truth, then it would be a very stupid way to try and steal the coins since they can find the code these coins hold and track them eventually. The other thing is that if they really were stolen, then this company deserves all the problems its facing for not protecting its systems properly. I mean in all honesty, you should not be able to lose 700k bitcoins that fast without someone noticing if your as big of a company as you say. The fact that they even later found 200k of the coins in an old wallet makes them look more fraudulent and foolish than ever.

I feel more is going to come of this later, but this guy is trying to avoid the law as it seems and its pretty clear he knows more than hes letting on.

One would have to be very obtuse not to realise that he is pulling a scam, a blatant one at that.

 

[GhostRyder]

One would have to be very obtuse not to realise that he is pulling a scam, a blatant one at that.

Or maybe they're being acute

 

[misor]

The u.s. has no jurisdiction? is the lawyer kidding me? never heard of national security or national e-security?
anything that has the potential to threaten the u.s. be it economic sabotage, military threat, espionage, etc., the u.s. can react.

hell, even a u.s. court 'ordered' that 1000$ be given to each of the nearly 10000 Filipino human rights victims during the martial law era of the Philippines.

Judge Manuel Real of the US District Court of Hawaii approved the distribution of $7.5 million to 7,526 eligible members of the class-action lawsuit. There were 9,539 members at the beginning of the case but some 2,000 did not meet court requirements.

 

[tonylukac]

Why do the courts have jurisdiction on his bankruptcy filing then?

 

[Raoul Duke]

Why do the courts have jurisdiction on his bankruptcy filing then?

Filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan not the USA