IF they're permitted to sell them it certainly won't be anywhere near an exchange. I assume it'll be similar to the US silk road situation. The liquidator will field offers from private buyers. There were people lining up to buy the SR coins so it probably won't be any different.

Still... If someone can buy 200,000BTC without using an exchange shouldn't that affect the price somewhere down the line nonetheless?
Who says whoever buys it will just sit on it?

doesn't matter if they don't sell it on a public exchange.

someone who would have otherwise bought on bitstamp will instead buy from them and thus demand on bitstamp will be reduced.
this will lower the price temporarily until they are done selling and the old supply-demand equilibrium will be restored.

if they sell fast enough the price could really crash, this could be the buying opportunity of a lifetime.

As terrible as it is to lose coins in this fiasco, I think selling large slabs of coins to big buyers is arguably a very good thing for the ecosystem. Power buyers with influence will want to see the coin succeed.

Also, the liquidation is a good step at moving forward in general.

But first of all... who is going to permit the liquidation? Those 200,000 recovered coins belongs to the Mt Gox users. When you liquidate a bank, you don't auction the cash deposits which are with the bank at that time.

It will not affect the Btc price... Private sale, these bitcoins are not going to be dumped in an exchange.

Price goes up if more people think buyer was smarter, price goes down if vice versa.

"wow someone bought 200,000 bitcoins?.. why? maybe I should buy some too"
"wow someone sold 200,000 bitcoins?.. why? maybe I should sell some too"

or else generally more attention given to bitcoins, which is overall positive.

The worst would likely be if they were put for sale, and no one bought any, or they were sold at a deep discount.

I'd say it depends on how the coins were sold and who bought them in a scenario like this.  But shouldn't those coins be returned to their right full owners?

Depositors are creditors and the largest creditors are dealt with first so far as I know.   I dont think its done equally but basically the money left in gox was part of its assets not the customers.   Its not a trust fund, Ive heard no mention of ring fencing to account funds.  So this money is not customers but part of the business holdings though there is a liability to repay deposits, its further down a queue of debts.   It might be they pay out nothing to the smallest holders.

Just my guess but obviously theres no insurance or protection scheme like a retail bank.

One of my brokers liquidated like this.  In theory the cash was mine, I put it there but the company had (illegally) done like Gox and become a fractional reserve type operation.  So I only got a refund from a gov scheme, the overseer or taxer of these companies sent me a small cheque

You just showed what people worried about the sale dropping the price are missing.  If the 200k BTC are liquidated, the funds raised will be distributed to the creditors (who a primarily Gox depositors).  These are the same people who just lost 750k BTC.  I would expect many of these people to purchase bitcoins once they receive their share of the fiat [which ironically was raised by selling their bitcoins in the first place lol]. 

So I don't think the direction of the anticipated price movement is clear.