Question posted in the General Law category relating to Mpumalanga
I am being asked by the lawyers re-presenting MTI Liquidating process, that i must repay the bitcoing withdrawal at todays bitcoin value.
1.Are they allowed to claim it back to me as i did not gain anything? As per their statement, i did withdrew less than initial deposit?
2. Are they allowed to say i must repay it at todays ZAR value(which is obv A LOT MORE) than the ZAR withdrawal value at the point in time of withdrawal on their statement.
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It sounds as if the summons or letter of demand that you received is exactly along the same lines as all of the other people who I've helped. Essentially instead of wanting to claim the ZAR value of the bitcoin from you as at the date that you sold the bitcoin (which could have been 3 or 4 years ago!) the liquidators are claiming the return of the actual bitcoin. They say that if you can't return the bitcoin, then you have to compensate them for the loss of the bitcoin as at today's value!
There are loads of articles about whether this interpretation is correct or not, and unfortunately there hasn't been a trial yet so there is no precedent set by a Court which other people can then rely on. So it essentially comes down to the liquidator's interpretation of the Insolvency Act and we don't know yet whether they are correct in their interpretation or not.
Re 1 - They are claiming it back from everyone, in the same way and you've received your letter of demand/summons. It doesn't matter that you might have only made a small profit, or not. Everyone is being treated the same.
Re 2 - Yes, this is what they are claiming. Either you must refuse and then take the dispute to trial, or you must defend their claim and hope that another court makes a finding on the liquidator's interpretation, and then see if you can settle the claim against you based on the court's finding.