Following a filing for bankruptcy protection in Japan in late February (read more about that here), the troubled Tokyo-based exchange has reportedly filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas, Texas, according to a number of reports (In re MtGox Co. Ltd., 14-bk-31229, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of [Dallas] Texas).
The move may, for the time being, put US-based legal action against the exchange on-hold — which will prevent Gox from spending presumably a large sum in legal fees defending themselves from a lawsuit filing in a Chicago federal court (Greene v. Mt. Gox Inc., 14-cv-01437, U.S. District Court, Northern District of [Chicago] Illinois). That lawsuit is seeking a class-action status.
Former users of the exchange are desperate to retrieve their funds, and the exchange has pegged the losses at 700,000+ BTC (worth hundreds of millions of U.S. Dollars).
The filing will also serve to protect the company’s U.S.-based assets will reorganizing and liquidating under the supervision of a Japanese court.
“The facts known to date indicate that it was caused or related to a flaw in the software algorithm that underlies bitcoin, and ‘hacking’ attacks of one or more persons,” Mark Karpeles said in a sworn statement submitted in the filing.
More developments as they become available.
[sources: BusinessWeek, Reuters]
