Japanese bank faces US lawsuit over Mt. Gox bitcoin losses

Customers in the United States of the now-defunct Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange can finally go after Mizuho bank, which they claimed concealed the exchange’s problems before it filed for bankruptcy.

The customers filed a class action lawsuit against the Japanese bank in February 2014, which incidentally, was also the same month that Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy, according to a Business Insider report.

In their lawsuit, the U.S.-based customers claimed their losses were inflated because the Japanese bank limited withdrawals from their Mt. Gox accounts in mid-2013. The bank, however, continued to accept deposits from Mt. Gox users even though the U.S. government had already opened an investigation into the exchange.

The customers claimed the withdrawal delays were due to “technical problems,” and not because the bitcoin exchange had “lost” 750,000 of its clients’ bitcoins. The lawsuit claimed Mizuho “stood silent while allowing the public to continue being duped.”