If exchanges were decentralized, they would be very difficult to sue.
This is a contractual dispute between business partners. No amount of decentralisation is going to stop people forming business partnerships or suing one another when deals go sour. |
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well it is very bad press for coinlab/mt gox and worst of all BTC no matter what is said.  You can't realistically expect companies not to exercise their legal options because doing so might reflect badly on Bitcoin. Plenty of people would sue Trendon Shavers if they though they could win in court, and his scam makes BTC look far more shady than any dispute between MtGox and CoinLab. The article seemed fine (in terms of info) and what do you have against the Verge? Mostly that they often pick up stories first published elsewhere and do no fact checking before republishing them. |
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Let's see how inaccurate it is by the time Verge and Wired pick it up. |
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I hope I am wrong and some how this law suit is fake, or gets dismissed, but I humbly suggest you need to get some long term strategic planners in there at Gx, if your serious about seeing this all through.
Apart from the documents being on PACER, CoinLab has confirmed they've filed suit and Mark has confirmed that he's aware of them filing. |
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"waiting for their products for over a year"
It never helps your credibility when you start out with a falsehood.
How is that false? The first pre-orders weren't taken until late June 2012. |
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Well, I'm seeing Roger as a standup dude, but when there's talk about a lot of money, it's not that easy to know anymore. Lawsuits tend to bring out the dirt. If people have been lying, it's going to come out when the parties start flinging shit at each other and I'm damned sure there'll be a ton of people on here reading every single document filed with the court. |
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Seriously last update March 21st? I just don't understand why folks running these businesses can't do basic PR.
It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a really a small note saying "we're working on it".... would make all the difference.
Or perhaps if I was a member of the Bitcoin Foundation I would be in the know.
I doubt that "we're about to sue MtGox" is something they wanted to advertise. |
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the next question is, will the guys behind mtgox turn up to hand over $75mill. or retire in a non extradition country
I doubt MtGox has anything like 75 million in assets. |
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I bet this has totally fucked Mark's plans for the long weekend...
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What is the worst case scenario for Bitcoin, Bitcoin users and MtGox clients?
When will the court proceeding realistaically take place? Will there be asset freeze? Etc?
Bitcoinica lawsuit still hasn't gone to trial so no time soon. Nobody's lawyer is going to be advising them to actually take this to trial. There'll be lots of negotiations back and forth in an attempt to reach a settlement. This is sure going to make the Future of Payments conference interesting... |
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Not to mention dropping this little bomb just before a long weekend in Japan.
Wankers... All of them.
What's the significance of the long weekend? No MtGox support staff there to approve wire transfers or large withdrawals. |
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I believe that running the bicoin exchange of the size of that of MtGox is a profitable business now and should be even more profitable in the future.
Why would MtGox sell the operations generated on North American clients so cheaply (the revshare described in point 4)? - 60% on current customers and 10% on new ones while they could very well enjoy 100% of old and new ones by running the operations by themselves?
Just recently requirements that foreign financial service providers report the investments of US citizens to the IRS and collect tax for the IRS were implemented. Japan is one the the nations implementing this. Major foreign banks and trading firms have been dumping US customers for a while now. An agreement like this one would allow MtGox to evade that requirement while still profiting from a US customer base. |
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That said, I'd bet they'd accept payment in Bitcoins if offered.
They might have a bit of trouble exchanging them if they put MtGox out of business. |
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When they sue, why not sue them for bitcoins?
Did you read the agreement? It's written in USD. ts. During each year of the Term, CoinLab shall reach the following minimum Revenue:
Yearl: US$310,000
Year 2: US$ 341,000 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 1, whichever is greater
Year 3: US$ 375,100 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 2, whichever is greater
Year 4: US$ 412,610 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 3, whichever is greater
Year 5: US$ 453,871 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 4, whichever is greater
Year 6: US$ 499,258 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 5, whichever is greater
Year 7: US$ 549,184 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 6, whichever is greater
Year 8: US$ 604,102 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 7, whichever is greater
Year 9: US$ 664,513 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 8, whichever is greater
Year 10: US$ 730,964 or 110% of the actual Revenue of Year 9, whichever is greater
Further, no later than 6 months prior to the end of any Term, the Parties shall agree on the minimum Revenue
applicable to the next Renewal Term. In case the Parties fail to agree on the minimum Revenue, the applicable
minimum Revenue during the next Renewal Term shall amount to the minimum applicable to the last year of the Term
increased by 10%.
Any failure by CoinLab to meet the targets for two consecutive years shall be considered a material breach of this
Agreement which shall give MtGox the right, at its convenience, either to terminate the exclusivity granted to CoinLab
under this Agreement or to terminate this Agreement. In the case where MtGox shall terminate the exclusivity granted
to CoinLab this Agreement shall continue to be in effect among the Parties except for this section J.
The obligation to reach the minimum Revenues defined herein shall apply even if CoinLab decides to provide the
Services on a CoinLab Website and even if CoinLab decides to provide services similar to the Services on a CoinLab
CoinLab, Inc.
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I'm still reading, but so far, it looks like the suit will likely be tossed. The contract will likely be nullified.
Your bank, brokerage, etc, etc, can't just sell your account to someone else, and a contract to do so would not be valid. There are complicated hoops that you have to jump through for that.
Lawsuits are about forcing the other party to the negotiating table. Banks take over the customers of other banks all the time, so I wouldn't assume a priori that this is a frivolous lawsuit. Very often the ToS of financial institutions state that they can pass your information to third parties to provide services on their behalf (remember that this is what we were told the deal was - and the complaint tends to support that) as long as the third parties adhere to the same data protection standards. Where there's some confusion is that MtGox originally said US customers would need to agree to new ToS with CoinLab whereas CoinLab's website said customer funds would be automatically migrated without customers doing anything - so there was no "opt-out" provision. Yes, unless all compliance issues in all countries were resolved, the contract is void. Also they can file they all want in USA, MTgox has no exposure in USA. Without reading the original agreement - which is presumably among the exhibits - we don't know which jurisdiction governs the agreement. It's not like it's impossible to get a court order domesticated in another country (and for tens of millions of dollars, you'd bother doing so). I very much doubt that MtGox has anything approaching $75 million, though so the question becomes what non-cash assets the plaintiffs would be willing to accept in settlement. While I was willing to take a two year restriction on our venue (US and Canada only for two years was part of our contract), I have for a number of years now wanted to make sure that Bitcoin is properly situated for everyone's good. So the deal allowed CoinLab to service customers outside of the US and Canada after the first two years. |
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Dito Can't get in either.
Do they try to prevent panic selling?
More likely there's a run of people rushing to withdraw and it's overloading their system. Their response times are pretty shitty on weekends anyway. |
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no court stamp on the Doc that I can see
There's a case number at the top and it looks like the court accepts electronic filing. If it's a troll, it's one into which someone with legal knowledge put a lot of effort. It refers to aspects of the agreement which were not public knowledge. And the story breaks at the last possible moment before a long weekend in Japan. Not even "before". Its almost 24 hours since business closed for the long weekend. It's Friday in Japan now and it's a holiday today - as is Monday. The 4 day holiday weekend is already underway. It's sure as hell going to make Bitcoin Foundation board meetings uncomfortable. |
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Just make sure this is a true story before spreading it everywhere.
Yesterday we had false story of MtGox being raided by police. Today MtGox being sued for $75m.
It might well be true, but please someone contact CoinLab first to verify.
"Coinlab is demanding $75 million in damages, and even that, it says, "likely underestimates the actual damages.""
Lawyers normally demand far more damages than "actual damages" - is this really real?
There's a link to the court documents in the Gawker article. http://www.scribd.com/doc/139160091/Coinlab-v-Mt-Gox |
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