Canada: Lawyers to Meet at Nova Scotia Supreme Court Over QuadrigaCX Representation

Published at: Feb. 13, 2019

Embattled Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX has become the subject of a bidding war as lawyers meet to win creditor representation, Bloomberg reported on Feb. 12.

The hearing at the Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Feb. 14 will decide which law firms can lobby for compensation on behalf of clients of the exchange, which currently owes them around $260 million CAD ($196 million).

The sum of $190 million CAD results from cryptocurrency and other deposits which the exchange reportedly lost following the death of its CEO, Gerald Cotten, in December. The ensuing legal action has added another $70 million CAD.

In total, the legal action involves around 115,000 QuadrigaCX users, Bloomberg notes.

As Cointelegraph reported, various rumors continue to swirl over the circumstances behind Quadriga’s demise.

Having previously claimed the client funds were in cold wallets — for which Cotten did not leave behind access information — the exchange’s statements have since been called into question after funds appeared to leave the assumed wallets after his death.

A more recent report suggested the funds were not in wallets at all, but were in fact missing altogether.

Earlier Wednesday, a separate debacle broke out after it emerged executives sent $500,000 worth of Bitcoin to inaccessible wallets by mistake. The blunder came via a report from Ernst & Young, which is in charge of restructuring Quadriga as part of the legal proceedings.

Tags
Related Posts
QuadrigaCX Director Asks Court to Appoint Restructuring Officer
Jennifer Robertson — the current director and widow of the founder of now-shuttered Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX — has asked a Canadian court to appoint a chief restructuring officer (CRO) to handle proceedings in the aftermath of the exchange’s controversial closure. In an affidavit filed with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia on Feb. 25, Robertson further requested that the court grant a stay of proceedings extension of the current period of creditor protection. As previously reported, Robertson’s spouse, 30-year-old Gerald Cotten, died in December 2018. At that time, the exchange reported that it was unable to access its cold …
Bitcoin / Feb. 26, 2019
QuadrigaCX Transfers Remaining Crypto to Big Four Auditor Ernst & Young
Canada’s now-offline QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency exchange has sent its remaining crypto assets from its hot wallets to Big Four auditing firm Ernst & Young (EY), according to the an official report EY published on Feb. 20. According to the EY’s “Second Report of the Monitor,” QuadrigaCX transferred almost all its online crypto to the auditor on Feb. 14, following some initial testing arrangements. The transferred amount included 51 Bitcoin (BTC), 952 Ethereum (ETH), 822 Litecoin (LTC), 33 Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and 2,033 Bitcoin Gold (BTG); a sum worth roughly $410,000 at press time. As the new report reads, EY will be …
Bitcoin / Feb. 21, 2019
Canadian Judge Appoints Legal Representatives for QuadrigaCX Customers
The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia has ordered Canadian law firms Miller Thomson and Cox & Palmer to represent customers of cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX in upcoming proceedings. The ruling was announced in a court filing published on Feb. 19. On Tuesday, Justice Michael Wood rendered a decision that Miller Thomson and Cox & Palmer will act as lead counsel to represent the representative committee of users of Canada’s major cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga. Specifically, the representative counsel will be responsible for “managing communications with users; acting as user liaison for the monitor [Ernst & Young]; advocating for user interests before the …
Bitcoin / Feb. 19, 2019
Canadian Judge Approves $1.6M in EY, Legal Firm Fees in QuadrigaCX Case
The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, Canada, has approved over $1.6 million in fees for parties seeking funds from former Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, according to recently released court documents. Justice Darlene Jamieson ordered to approve the activities, fees and disbursements incurred by the Monitor — Big Four audit firm EY — in the ongoing proceedings of QuadrigaCX. The exchange ostensibly lost access to its cold wallet holdings following the death of its founder, Gerald Cotten, in December 2018, and now owes over $198.4 million to an estimated 115,000 users. Jamieson also approved the fees and disbursements of representative counsel, …
Blockchain / July 31, 2019
QuadrigaCX Wallet Have Been Empty, Unused Since April 2018, Ernst and Young Finds
Big Four audit firm Ernst & Young (EY) released its “Third Report of the Monitor” in the creditor protection proceedings of Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX on March 1. Within the report, the audit firm has identified six separate crypto wallets that were used primarily to store Bitcoin (BTC), the cryptocurrency most used on the platform. Apart from one inadvertent transaction of Bitcoin amounting to nearly $500,000, there have been no deposits in the wallets since April 2018. Furthermore the report states: “To date, the Applicants have been unable to identify a reason why Quadriga may have stopped using the Identified …
Blockchain / March 2, 2019