MtGox Bankruptcy Trustee Answers Some Questions

MtGox and Bankruptcy Trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi have answered some questions put to them by creditors at the second creditors meeting held on November 26th 2014.

In short:

  • Proof of claims will be accepted beginning April 2015.
  • Payments to TIBANNE have been reduced where possible.
  • Financial reports for MtGox's first and second fiscal year have been released but it's not known if they are accurate.
  • Bitcoin addresses will continue to be withheld.

Below is the English text from the predominately Japanese document.

Q1 Will filing of proof of claims be accepted, only after the investigation regarding whether bitcoins have been lost, and the circumstances thereof, have been completed?

A1 As previously reported, at present it has not determined as to when the investigation regarding whether bitcoins have been lost, and the circumstances thereof, will be completed. However, at present, the bankruptcy trustee intends to start accepting the filing of proof of claims in April 2015, even if the aforementioned investigation has not been completed (however, in order for the bankruptcy trustee to make a decision to approve the filed claims (namely, approval or disapproval of claims), the aforementioned investigation regarding whether bitcoins have been lost, and the circumstances thereof, may need to be completed.).

Q2 What is the reason for the payments made by MtGox to TIBANNE Co., Ltd. (“TIBANNE”)?

A2 Prior to the commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings, there were no employees at MtGox, and, therefore, services required for MtGox’s business (including leasing of office space, internet connection, and leasing of servers, etc.) have been provided through TIBANNE, with which MtGox entered into service agreements. In order to preform MtGox’s bankruptcy trustee’s duties after the commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings, a certain office space, internet connection and services by employees of TIBANNE, are still necessary, and, consequently, I have continued the use of such services. Meanwhile, the bankruptcy trustee has reduced the amount of those necessary expenses by taking measures such as the cancellation of agreements, etc., which are no longer necessary, at appropriate times.

Under the Bankruptcy Act, those expenses necessary for bankruptcy proceedings incurred after the commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings (office rent, internet usage charges, and personnel expenses, etc.) should be paid at any time as claims on the estate (zaidan saiken), and accordingly the bankruptcy trustee pays them after obtaining approval from the Tokyo District Court, as necessary.

A breakdown of such expenses mainly includes MtGox’s office rent (currently there is no office rent payable to TIBANNE regarding MtGox’s bankruptcy trustee’s office because it has moved to a lower rent office after the commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings), an amount equivalent to the actual expenses incurred by TIBANNE for the internet connection and server lease costs, etc., and an amount equivalent to the personnel expenses for TIBANNE staff engaged in services such as preparing relevant materials (who are at present paid on a time-charge basis), etc.

As stated above, the payments to TIBANNE are those paid for the expenses necessary for performing the bankruptcy trustee’s duties, [in][“and are”] an appropriate amount, and no inappropriate profits are given to TIBANNE. Further, the bankruptcy trustee has endeavored to reduce such expenses after the commencement of bankruptcy proceedings.

Q3 Would you consider to disclose MtGox’s financial reports?

A3 Ordinarily, when creditors want to review a bankrupt entity’s previous financial reports, etc., under a bankruptcy proceeding, creditors review such documents through inspection and copying at a court, if they are included in the documents for application for the commencement of bankruptcy proceeding. However, in this case, I decided to disclose the financial reports of MtGox for the 1st fiscal year and the 2nd fiscal year, which are the attachments to the application for the commencement of civil rehabilitation procedure as per the Exhibit on this WebSite. Please note that such financial reports were prepared before the commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings and the bankruptcy trustee does not warrant their accuracy or completeness, etc., and the bankruptcy trustee [may][“does”] not necessarily verify all the content of such financial reports. In addition, the bankruptcy trustee still continues to conduct thorough investigations of the existence, etc. of the loss of the bankrupt entity’s BTC and money, and, therefore, please note in advance that the bankruptcy trustee does not plan to respond to any specific inquiry with respect to descriptions of such financial reports.

Q4 Will not the address of bitcoins managed by MtGox be disclosed?

A4 The police investigation into MtGox is currently being conducted. Since the investigative authorities request the trustee to carefully consider the disclosure of the address, disclosure of the address is withheld at this point and I will continue to consider its future disclosure.

[Supplement] In the 20th line on page 3 in “the Report” distributed at the creditors’ meeting, the amount of BTC managed by the bankruptcy estate was stated as “202,149.2273849003BTC” but it was a clerical mistake, and “202,149.2273849BTC” is the correct figure. The report disclosed on this WebSite shows the correct figure.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>