Mt. Gox Creditors Seek More Than $22 Billion: Claims Investigation Extended
Nearly 25,000 creditors are claiming JPY 2,663,398,225,570 (more than $22 billion USD) from Mt. Gox Co. Ltd., according to bankruptcy trustee attorney Nobuaki Kobayashi. Kobayashi filed a report with the Tokyo District Court, Collegiate Section of the 20th Civil Division. The report summarizes the status of claims against the bankrupt company, along with the status of the investigation into the disappearance of bitcoins from the exchange.
The trustee published the report distributed at the fourth credits meeting, according to leaprate.com.
Report Lists Assets and Balance Sheet
As of Sept. 8, 2015, the bankruptcy trustee has secured JPY 1,242,068,375, i.e., a decrease of approximately JPY 130,000,000 from the time of the third creditors’ meeting. The list of assets and balance sheet does not include bitcoin held by the bankrupt entity or claims for return of bitcoin, which constitute the bankruptcy claim.
“I continue to strive for the possible collection of assets,” Kobayashi stated in the report.
The amount of bitcoin managed by the bankruptcy estate is 202,159.34071488 BTC. “Currently, I am still investigating the existence of BTC remaining in the bankrupt entity’s data, and it is planned that as soon as such BTC are found I will move them to the address which I manage, and I will keep such BTC,” he stated.
Three Creditors Hold Most Of The Claims
In reporting on the status of the claims, Kobayashi said that at the end of August 2015, there were 24,704 creditors. The total amount of bankruptcy claims filed was JPY 2,663,398,225,570, of which the amount of the claims filed by the three largest creditors is JPY 2,533,517,211,285 (note: these are unverified claims and could be false, the market cap of Bitcoin is at the time of writing $3 billion while the tree creditors claim roughly $21 billion).
Today, Sept. 9, was the date set for the investigation of claims. However, Kobayashi said he is still investigating the disappearance of the bitcoin and currencies and has not approved or disapproved any of the claims. Hence, he has extended the date for the investigation of claims to the date of the next creditors meeting. In addition to the disappearance of bitcoin and currencies, he is also investigating the balance of the account held by each user of the exchange.
“I plan to approve or disapprove the claims filed by the creditors other than the exchange-user creditors today,” he said in the report.
Work Gets Assigned To Outside Firms
Kobayashi said he is delegating investigative work to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu LLC and ReEx Accounting Firm. He is also obtaining the assistance of the supporting company Payward.
He also noted he is cooperating with the Metropolitan Police in the investigation. The report noted the bankrupt entity has several affiliated companies from which Kobayashi is trying to collect. These include: TIBANNE Co., Ltd.; K.K. Shade 3D; K.K. Bitcoin Café; and Robert Marie Mark Karpeles.
The probability of distribution, timing and method have not yet been determined, the report noted.
I continue to consider whether or not I will make distributions by way of distributing BTC when bankruptcy distributions are made. Since an extremely large number of creditors exist worldwide in this case, as much as possible, I plan to disclose information, etc., necessary for creditors regarding this case on the website that I manage (https://www.mtgox.com) from time to time.
The document includes a list of assets, as well as income and expenditures.
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