Ars Technica reported that an Illinois man filed consumer fraud, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and other charges against embattled Mt Gox after the latter had abruptly shuttered its virtual money exchange business this week. It has been noted that the popular Bitcoin exchange has filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan on Friday.
According to the 32-page filing submitted by Gregory Greene to the Northern District court of Illinois, he was trying to withdraw the money he invested in Mt Gox since late 2011 after the virtual money exchange confirmed the massive security breach on its exchange. Ars Technica noted that Greene had filed on behalf of all US individual investors who had Bitcoins or Fiat Currency stored with the virtual money exchange on February 7 this year.
Greene had said in the class-action suit he filed that he would have paid little or none for Mt Gox if he had known that the service has substandard security procedures.
His filing read, "Worse yet, at the time Mt. Gox shut down, Greene had used Mt. Gox's services to store and protect bitcoins with a present value of approximately $25,000 dollars. Despite his repeated attempts, Greene has been unable to withdraw his money from Mt. Gox since early February 2014. Prior to February 7, 2014, Plaintiff's bitcoins had a market value of nearly double their value following Mt. Gox's prohibition on withdrawals and eventual shutdown, which undeniably caused a sharp decline in the market value of bitcoins."
When Ars Technica contacted Mt Gox Chief Executive Officer Mark Karpeles about Greene's class-action suit, the exchange head did not respond to the tech news site's request for comment.
Ars Technica noted that this is not the first time an individual or entity or an individual on behalf of a group had filed legal claims against Bitcoin-related companies.
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