Topic: CoinLab suing MtGox for $75 milliion? - page 7. (Read 19439 times)

Roger Ver is saying that he knew nothing about the lawsuit until news of it was posted on these forums.

A 75 million dollar lawsuit is a pretty huge thing to keep your investors in the dark about.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2013531

I've had about enough of this Vess tea-bagger. This lawsuit reeks of frivolity and is well-timed to dump BTC valuation over the weekend.
How hard would it be for anyone with inside knowledge of the lawsuit to pre-sell, then get ready to buy after the panic (Guess what,
there are no "insider trading" laws regarding bitcoin)? There are any number of ways to profit from this lawsuit, and I don't regard
any of them as ethical. Worse still, the lawsuit is HORRIBLE for the bitcoin community and the currency's public image.  Mt Gox needs
competition, but this is precisely the wrong way to create it.

Maybe the thread titled "Should Peter Vessenes resign as CEO of the Bitcoin Foundation?" was NOT premature.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/should-peter-vessenes-resign-as-the-executive-director-for-bitcoin-foundation-177679

I'm tempted to say, I told you so, but at least it seems that my reservations (or rather questions) towards Vess were warranted.

Here's an old thread that could be relevant:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=148147.0;all
...
So it seems to me that Coinlab is burning bridges and attempting a very opportunistic lawsuit.

In the real world, although the jurisdiction is set to Washington state, there is still an international process to be followed as Gox does not have physical or legal presence in the US. To be served the court papers, it must be done through a court-to-court petition (rogatory letter, that cannot be sent by post office) the US court must request the Japanese court with jurisdiction over Gox to serve them the papers officially. Not only the japanese court can refuse ou delay it as much as possible (I've seen such cases take from 6 months to years just on this int'l paperwork come-and-go, it is usually a very very slow proccess even when the Hague Convention is applicable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_rogatory

Nothing is going to happen in the weekend. Or for a good number of weekends to come.

Hacker News (discussion forum for Y-Combinator which funded CoinLab) is zealously deleting any threads started to discuss this topic. They regularly surpress discussion of topics that might make them, or the companies they've funded, look bad. So, I think it's probably legit. The $75 million, on the other hand (if that's what you meant) is of course fine-cut bullshit.

I wouldn't worry too much about Mt. Gox. They have shitloads of money. All CoinLab has is SV hype courtesy of Paul Graham and his merry band of VC hooligans.

I saw that.  If that was intentional, I do not have anything nice to say about CoinLab's attorney.  You don't do that in your complaint.  

Why isn't this a normal thing to do?

I saw that.  If that was intentional, I do not have anything nice to say about CoinLab's attorney.  You don't do that in your complaint.  

FYI: The 75 millon sum is mentioned several places in the lawsuit document, and there's also mention of a 50 mill clause in the contract agreement between Gox and Coinlab, and it's also repeated in the filing papers, so it looks like it's 75 millions and not 75K.

I'm tempted to say, I told you so, but at least it seems that my reservations (or rather questions) towards Vess were warranted.

Here's an old thread that could be relevant:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=148147.0;all


I don't know what Coinlab is trying to achive by suing MtGox like this. First off, if they intend to do business on the US/Canadian market, they need to have trust in their userbase. Knowing about all the scammy operations in Bitcoin-land, any new player must be super careful to build confidence in the community and with customers. You don't build confidence by suing the largest Bitcoin exchange for 75million dollars. I don't know how hard they've tried to get MtGox to cooperate, as we all know it can be slow getting MtGox do do anything, as they're swamped with requests. But I would think Coinlab has more effective channels of communication than the usual customer service channel.

Also - if Coinlab want MtGox to cooperate, then suing them won't make them much more cooperative I would think. So it seems to me that Coinlab is burning bridges and attempting a very opportunistic lawsuit. I also read in the lawsuit that Bitcoin is the most successfull kind of digital money. As Bitcoin has less market share than Paypal for instance, I don't think that's an accurate statement.

I'm looking forward to a statement from Mark Karpeles regarding all of this.

Edit: Someone else in this thread claims it must be an error in the court document, and that it's not 75 million dollars but 75 thousand dollars. That's quite a difference..

The deal's not in trouble.

We've moved a few key customers over, will announce more information soon.

We are in the market for a communications person -- send your resume's to [email protected].

First thing I notice:  There's a big typo in this complaint.  

I guarantee the drafting attorney meant to write in Paragraph 3: "This is an action for damages in excess of $75,000.00 excluding interest, attorneys’ fees and costs."

Instead the complaint says "$75,000,000.00".

The federal diversity statute 28 U.S.C. § 1332 requires the complaint to be in excess of $75,000.  I have never seen any federal complaint when any number other than $75,000 is written in this paragraph.

So the $75 million number that is being thrown around is quite simply wrong.  

I'll continue reading the complaint now.  That's as far as I got before I noticed that.  

Edit:  In fact, there is a liquidated damages provision in this contract.  So the MOST under any circumstances they could get would be $50 million.  I'll have to lookup WA state common law on liquidated damages though to determine how the court will analyze this provision.

More drama in bitcoin land, it seems.  reddit is worth reading too.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dl6uz/coinlab_sues_mtgox/c9rfq4p

Gox update:

https://mtgox.com/pdf/20130503_coinlab_lawsuit.pdf

Reading the contract they signed, Mt.Gox is clearly in violation. You can't contract for exclusive access and then turn around and go "Oh, nevermind"

What do you want CoinLab to do? Sit around hoping Mt.Gox will follow through? Breach of contract is a reasonable and classic time to take it to the courts.

I think it's retarded of Mt.Gox to have signed the contract to begin with.

So you can be in the US and sue somebody in Japan? Don't you need lawyers in Japan to do that?