Another class action lawsuit for around $771 000 has been filed against the hacked Japanese exchange Coincheck.
Coincheck was hacked in January 26 and over $530 mln in NEM was taken from its hot wallet storage. The exchange froze withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies after the hack, allowing withdrawals and sales of certain coins to begin again in mid-March.
Two 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, suing for around $2 mln in damages.
The Japanese law firm ITJ, which is responsible for this most recent lawsuit involving 15 plaintiffs, 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 January 26 when Coincheck «restricted the deposit» of NEM, the price at 16:37 on January 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 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.
Coincheck damage control defence 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.
After the hack, Japan’s Financial Service Agency (FSA) began the inspections of the country’s 15 unregistered crypto exchanges, filing business improvement notices to seven (including Coincheck) and temporarily halting activities at two more.
