In late February 2014, MtGox Co., Ltd (“MtGox”), once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, suspended all trading on its exchange after internal investigations revealed a loss of approximately 750,000 of its customers’ bitcoins worth nearly $473 million. That loss caused MtGox to become insolvent.
On April 16, Mt. Gox’s civil rehabilitation proceeding in Tokyo (something similar to a U.S. Chapter 11) was dismissed and the initial stages of a bankruptcy liquidation under Japanese law began. An Interim Administrator (Nobuaki Kobaysahi) has been named until the Japanese court decides whether the liquidation will begin and whether a different Administrator replaces the Interim Administrator. How this situation came to be is an interesting tale.
Japanese mobile phone service operator Willcom has filed for bankruptcy protection after failing to reach agreement with creditors on the restructuring of the company’s US $2.3 billion debt load. Filed late last week under Japan’s corporate rehabilitation law, the petition ranks as the largest bankruptcy to affect a Japanese telecom carrier. It is expected to wipe out the investment of the Carlyle Group, the U.S.-based private equity firm that, in 2004, paid US $330 million for a 60% controlling stake in what was then the mobile phone unit of KDDI Corp.
Court Acceptance of Petition for Corporate Reorganization
© 2011 Bloomberg Finance L.P. All rights reserved. Originally published by Bloomberg Finance L.P. in the Vol. 4, No. 6 edition of the Bloomberg Law Reports—Asia Pacific Law. Reprinted with permission. Bloomberg Law Reports® is a registered trademark and service mark of Bloomberg Finance L.P.
Welcome to our guide for directors and prospective directors of subsidiary companies in Japan.
On March 1 2011 Tokyo District Court issued a decision which admitted the right of avoidance exercised by the court-appointed administrator of a corporate debtor in possession under civil rehabilitation proceedings, where the debtor company had settled a mortgage for a financing company as the real guarantor of its parent company.