A 15-person class action lawsuit has been filed against Coincheck for almost $800,000 in damages.
Another class action lawsuit for around 82 mln yen (around $771,000) has been filed against the hacked Japanese exchange Coincheck, Cointelegraph Japan reports today, April 2.
Coincheck was hacked in Jan. 26 and over $530 mln in NEM was taken from its hot wallet storage. The exchange froze withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies in the aftermath of the hack, allowing withdrawals and sales of certain coins to begin again in mid-March.
Two known lawsuits have already been filed against Coincheck by lawyer Hiromu Mochizuki, the first involving 10 crypto traders who sued over the freezing of crypto withdrawals, The second Coincheck lawsuit filed by the same lawyer involves 132 plaintiffs, reportedly suing for 228 mln yen (around $2 mln) in damages.
The Japanese law firm ITJ, which is responsible for this most recent lawsuit involving 15 plaintiffs, has a notice about filing for Coincheck damages on the front page of their website. The firm states that they will “request damages” against Coincheck for the “cryptocurrencies’ price before the incident minus the price that plaintiffs actually could withdraw.”
Coincheck began offering refunds in Japanese yen to customers affected by the hack on March 13 at the fixed rate of around 88.5 yen (around $0.83) to one NEM coin.
ITJ’s Coincheck damages page, which was written before Coincheck began allowing certain withdrawals on March 13, states that there are three important price points in deciding the amount to be refunded: the first at 11:58 on Jan. 26 when Coincheck “restricted the deposit” of NEM, the price at 16:37 on Jan. 26 when Coincheck temporarily suspended both crypto and fiat withdrawals, and the price when the hack was initially covered by the media.
These price points are for plaintiffs who were at one point unable to withdraw their holdings to figure out how to claim their losses based on the prices at the time they were actually able to withdraw.
CT Japan reports that Japan Rashinban defense counsel also has a legal team working on filing damages for those affected by the Coincheck hack. The Japanese law firm Aussens also already filed three other lawsuits against Coincheck, the first on Feb. 26, the second on March 14, and the third on March 28, all at the Tokyo District Court.
Following the hack, Japan’s Financial Service Agency (FSA) began on-site inspections of the country’s 15 unregistered crypto exchanges, filing business improvement notices to seven (including Coincheck) and temporarily halting activities at two more.
