The trustee of hacked, now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox has posted another update on the long-running process of refunding the exchange clients. Nobuaki Kobayashi, a Tokyo attorney appointed to act as civil rehabilitation trustee to manage Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy estate funds, announced Thursday that the Tokyo District Court ordered that “There were no grounds for disapproving the draft rehabilitation plan.” As previously reported, the plan was filed on Dec. 15, 2020. According to the announcement, the court has approved a repayment process schedule that includes a vote by creditors on the proposed refund plan. As part of the process, the …

A federal district court in the United States has dismissed a securities fraud class action against Israel-based cryptocurrency firm Bancor. U.S. district judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled on Monday to dismiss a case against Bancor, stating that plaintiffs had failed to allege losses as well as citing lack of personal jurisdiction. The judge has also canceled an oral argument scheduled for March 4, 2021, entering judgment in favor of the defendants. The case was brought by New York law firms Roche Cyrulnik Freedman and Selendy & Gay in April 2020, alleging that the Bancor protocol developer, BProtocol Foundation, violated federal and …

The Senate sees new legislation aiming to update antitrust laws for new technologies. Senator and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Amy Klobuchar is introducing the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act today, Cointelegraph has learned. Sen. Klobuchar, who heads the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, is looking to put new burdens on companies seeking to acquire competitors. An announcement of the bill noted that it aims to "Shift the burden to the merging parties to prove their merger will not violate the law." The bill would also provide broad new legal authority and resources to the Justice Department's Antitrust …

Robinhood, the stock trading app formerly popular with millennials, is facing another class-action suit, following its recent temporary suspension of purchases of GameStop and other “meme-stocks” through its platform. The lawsuit, filed Jan. 29 in Houston, Texas, alleges that Robinhood, along with other named defendants including TD Ameritrade and WeBull, arrived at “a common understanding of what must be done, which they carried out with conscious parallelism.” Conscious parallelism, in competition law, refers to behavior in which competitors in an oligopoly set prices or terms without a formal agreement. One entity will take the initiative in setting a price, while …

Ripple Labs, the company behind the Ripple payment protocol and XRP-based products, is facing another lawsuit alleging the firm violated securities laws in the United States. On Monday, Florida-based XRP investor Tyler Toomey filed a civil suit against Ripple Labs and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants failed to comply with Florida securities laws by failing to register with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation. Toomey notes that Ripple Labs and Garlinghouse ar already facing a similar lawsuit for reportedly violating federal securities laws. The $1.35 billion suit was brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange …

The website of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is no longer formally blacklisted in Russia, according to a new court ruling. According to a Jan. 21 report by Russian news agency Kommersant, the Arkhangelsk Regional Court has annulled a previous decision to blacklist the Binance website in Russia. Gleb Kostarev, Binance’s head of operations for Russia and the CIS, confirmed the news to Cointelegraph, stating that the court hearing took place on Jan. 20. The latest court decision reverts a previous ruling made in 2020. In September, Binance announced that its website came on the list of prohibited websites …

Competition authorities are hitting the books when it comes to emerging technologies like blockchain and AI. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced that it would be participating in a new initiative at Stanford University to onboard more advanced technological tools into its fight against monopolies. The DoJ is merely the most vocal addition to Stanford’s Computational Antitrust project. It joins the competition watchdogs of 46 other countries and the U.S.’s Federal Trade Commission. The announcement is part of a broad surge in interest in cutting-edge tech and antitrust law, the culmination of a lot of motion at both academia …

Mate Tokay, Bitcoin.com’s former CEO, is taking legal action against a small-cap crypto he advised for reportedly failing to pay him 37.5 million Bridge Token (BRG) worth $525,000. Tokay claimed that he was never paid for his services, despite the project using his name for recognition to attract investment for Bridge's $8 million initial exchange offering three months ago. He added that Bridge’s founder, Sina Estavi, offered to compensate Tokay with “a far lower sum” than what was agreed in their contract, adding that other advisors have allegedly received similar treatment. At current prices, the reportedly promised stash of 37.5 …

Several investors in XRP have filed with a Rhode Island court, looking to change the course of the Securities and Exchange Commission's case against Ripple. In response to what it calls "the most significant SEC enforcement action in modern history," the Friday filing is a petition for a "writ of mandamous." A "mandamus" is effectively just an order that a public official — in this case, the chairman of the SEC — does their job. The filers are calling upon new Acting Chairman Elad Roisman to alter the course that his predecessor, Jay Clayton, set by beginning enforcement against Ripple …

On Dec. 15, Mt. Gox’s trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi filed a draft rehabilitation plan to refund Mt. Gox users. According to an official announcement posted on Mt. Gox website, the Tokyo District Court and an examiner will review the draft rehabilitation plan and determine whether to proceed with the rehabilitation proceedings as part of the draft rehabilitation plan. The move comes shortly after Kobayashi received another approval to extend the deadline for submitting a rehabilitation plan in October 2020. As reported, the Tokyo District Court extended the deadline until Dec. 15, 2020. Kobayashi previously obtained a number of similar deadline extensions …

After years of legal action from United States governing bodies, Blockvest, a 2018 initial coin offering, or ICO, has received its final orders. “The SEC, as a government agency, seeks a permanent injunction, disgorgement of funds received from Defendants’ illegal conduct, and civil penalties,” said a court document filed on Thursday. The court case takes aim at both Blockvest, and its founder, Reginald Buddy Ringgold III, also known as Rasool Abdul Rahim El. The Securities and Exchange Commission put the brakes on Blockvest in October 2018. The following two years saw a number of legal dealings and developments. Today’s news …

After years of extradition debates, Bitcoin (BTC) launderer Alexander Vinnik has finally been sentenced by a French court. According to a report on Monday by Novaya Gazeta, Vinnik has been sentenced to five years in prison for "money laundering as part of an organized criminal group and providing false information about the origin of the proceeds" in addition to a fine of 100,000 euro ($121,000). According to the BBC, the court partially dropped charges related to the ransomware known as Locky. As of publishing time, online reports do not specify whether Vinnik’s sentence is related to his alleged senior role …