Tokyo Court orders bankruptcy trustee to begin Mt. Gox liquidation

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo District Court ordered liquidation to begin at failed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, the company said on Thursday, after the bankruptcy administrator said on April 16 that it would be difficult to rehabilitate the firm. Mt. Gox, once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, filed for bankruptcy protection on February 28, saying that 750,000 of its customers' bitcoins had been taken from the exchange due to a security flaw in its code, as well as 100,000 belonging to the exchange. It also said that $27 million was missing from its bank accounts. A document uploaded onto its website and signed by bankruptcy administrator, attorney Nobuaki Kobayashi, said that he would conduct an investigation regarding the liability of the representative director of the company, Mark Karpeles, regarding the missing assets. The document also said that a creditors' meeting would take place on July 23, 2014. A group of investors under the umbrella of a company called Sunlot made a last-ditch attempt in mid-April to prevent the liquidation of the exchange, bidding to take over Mt. Gox in order to retrieve the cryptocurrency and cash belonging to its 127,000 creditors. (Reporting by Sophie Knight; Editing by Dominic Lau)