BonelliErede, the Italian law firm representing victims of the BitGrail crypto exchange hack, has filed a petition with an Italian court to declare the exchange bankrupt under article 6 of Italian Bankruptcy Law, a BonelliErede representative on reddit Friday, April 27.
The move represents the latest development in a war of words and lawyers that has exploded between BitGrail’s owner, Francesco “The Bomber” Firano, and the Nano Foundation, since the exchange reported the of 17 mln Nano (XRB) tokens (worth around $187 mln at the time it was reported, and at press time). In an interview with CT, Firano the theft dates to Jan. 19, but it was first Feb. 8, 2018.
According to a Medium post by the BitGrailVictimsGroup, BonelliErede is filing the bankruptcy petition on behalf of a BitGrail creditor, Espen Enger, with whom over 3000 claimants have so far allegedly made contact. Most victims have reportedly told Enger that they “prefer an immediate accounting of BitGrail’s assets in bankruptcy,” fearing further depletion of their assets:
“In filing for a declaration of bankruptcy, a decision has been made to trust the Italian legal system to resolve the conflict. We are confident that the Italian authorities are best equipped to require Mr. Firano to disclose the facts of what occurred […] [We] seek an equitable distribution of the assets rather than to permit private resolutions in which some victims might profit over others.”
In February, Nano developers an accusation that Firano had asked for the altcoin’s ledger to be modified “in order to cover his losses,” as well as allegedly “misleading” the community regarding the exchange’s solvency.
Firano that the fault lay not with the exchange, but originated with Nano’s “totally unreliable” protocol, pointing to timestamp inconsistencies on the Nanode block explorer.
In mid-March, BitGrail to refund victims, proposing to cover 80 percent of the losses by issuing its own newly-minted BitGrail Shares (BGS) token, with the remaining 20 percent in XRB. The caveat was that victims would need sign an agreement to forgo any legal action against the exchange.
The legal saga nonetheless took off in April, when demanded that the Nano Core Team hard-fork the token’s protocol to compensate victims. Since then, Nano has to sponsor a legal fund to provide all BitGrail victims with legal representation, in collaboration with BonelliErede and Enger.
As per a February 18 Twitter poll by “The Bomber” himself, 79 percent of the 7,610 respondents on Twitter would prefer to see the exchange file bankruptcy, rather than reopened.
Cosa preferireste che facesse BitGrail?
— Francesco The Bomber (@bomberfrancy)
Previous crypto exchange breaches have produced various controversies over , and .
Published at Sat, 28 Apr 2018 14:54:47 +0000
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