Mt Gox Trustee Seeks to Extend Civil Rehabilitation Claims Deadline

Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee of the collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, is seeking to extend the deadline for filing civil rehabilitation claims to December.

Kobayashi announced Thursday that he will make "efforts to request the court to accept proofs of rehabilitation claims received by December 26, 2018.”

The earlier deadline of Oct. 22 has already passed, but as the creditors are located worldwide, the trustee said more time is needed to collect proof of claims and ensure that all forms are delivered.

The online filing system for rehabilitation claims is still accessible, and creditors who are unable to access the system can also manually fill and send the forms to the office of the trustee, not later than Dec. 26.

“Whether proofs of rehabilitation claims filed after the deadline will be accepted is determined by the court,” the trustee explained.

Once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange by trading volume, Mt. Gox officially filed for liquidation in April 2014 after claiming to have been hacked for 850,000 bitcoin, some of which was later found. At the same time, it dealt a blow to investors by dropping its plan for civil rehabilitation.

After a long wait, creditors had a victory in June 2018, when the Tokyo District Court issued an order approving a petition to begin civil rehabilitation. The petition was initially submitted in November of 2017.

Now, if the court approves the December deadline, the creditors will have one more month to submit proof of their claims.

Mt. Gox image via Shutterstock