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Mt. Gox: CoinLab is one of the main reasons for holding up the bankruptcy proceedings, says Andy Pag

source-logo  ambcrypto.com 15 April 2019 19:30, UTC

In an interview with Peter McCormack, Andy Pag, a former administrator of Mt. Gox Legal, spoke about the reason it would take a long time for the Mt. Gox’s civil rehabilitation process to settle.

Andy Pag called it quits over the uncertainty caused by CoinLab’s $16 billion claims, which he stated could take anywhere between 24 months to two years to be settled. He stated that CoinLab was currently in the reassessment process, where the Trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi, personally goes through its claims. However, if the Trustee decides to reject it, CoinLab can take this case to a judge under bankruptcy proceedings. He added,

“CoinLab makes a submission to the judge saying, ‘well this is why we should have our claim accepted’ and the Trustee looks at that over a period of time. The trustee then replies ‘well, this is why its absolutely rubbish and they shouldn’t have it’ and then CoinLab gets it […] it goes backward and forwards until everybody is satisfied and the judge makes a ruling”

This was followed by Pag stating that they were “presumably” arguing over the same legal points, adding that this process was ongoing for four years. He also stated that even back then, CoinLab was one of the main reasons for holding up the bankruptcy proceedings. He went on to state,

“[…] we’ve already done four years of this. Now, the trustee said at the meeting we’re not gonna start from the beginning because we’ve already done that so we’re underway. My view is based on having spoken to our lawyers; they said, ‘well, you know, [it] can take two months, it could take six months, you know actually who knows […]”

The former administrator further stated that CoinLab requested the court to seal all the paperwork with regard to these submissions. He stated that because of this, no one could gain access to the files, learn the arguments made by either of the parties, and conclude the duration this case could take to settle. Pag added,

“[…] we’ve got no way of really judging what stage this is at, what merits the legal arguments that are being made, are being submitted. we’re completely in the dark. there’s a really really frustrating process. […] we’ve made a request to a lawyer that they unseal those papers but actually we don’t have any standing really to do that […]

He further added that according to Mark Karpeles, the CEO of Mt. Gox during its collapse, this process could take up to a year. And, if the claim was rejected at the end, CoinLab could move towards litigation, where they could argue about their rights over the assets in a courtroom, rather than through written submissions. CoinLab would also have to pay court fees of around $75 million, Pag added. He said,

“[…] in Japan, I sat down with the lawyers and we did the calculation a lot more accurately and what I’ve realized is that for very little money for about $400,000 to $500,000, they can probably still put in a claim maybe not $16 billion but around $1 billion or $2 billion; that is still big enough to hold the process up […]”

ambcrypto.com