Bitcoin Forum

http://bitcoinexaminer.org/mizuho-bank-defendant-lawsuit-mtgox/ (http://bitcoinexaminer.org/mizuho-bank-defendant-lawsuit-mtgox/)

Is there precedent for this?   It disturbs me that the bank would be held liable, since the implication is that a bank must intensely scrutinize your business because they will be held liable, sort of like blaming ISP's for enabling sharing of copyrighted material by their customers.   It will give the banks another reason to avoid bitcoin-based businesses.

In my opinion there could be some justification in this, but for me it hinges on the bank's actions over the last few weeks.

I think that between 7 to 25 February something should have been done at the bank, even if it was not visible publicly: an internal investigation into Gox, a clear decision to close the Gox bank account... something to show that the bank was at least making efforts to understand or deal with their client and its problems.

If there is no record of the bank doing anything beyond the vague meeting with Gox then this lack of action could be tantamount to gross negligence, considering the public outcry about Gox's treatment of its customers over the past few months.

Suing Mt. Gox's bank is a reasonable thing to do, because they may have known about Mt. Gox's financial problems but failed to disclose them. That might be contributory negligence. If some kind of attack resulted in withdrawals of customer funds by unauthorized parties, then the bank might have some liability. It's known that there were unhappy discussions between Mt. Gox and Mizuho Bank, but the details haven't been published.

Suing the bank also has the practical effect that the bank will now try to document that it was all Mt. Gox/Karpeles fault. This will help track where the money went.