Quote from: repentance on October 20, 2012, 09:41:45 PM

Quote from: conspirosphere.tk on October 20, 2012, 09:10:39 PM

So you are saying that since GLBSE users were not innocent, they would better suck whatever comes?
I'd rather go in jail with Nefarious.

Tell me what you believe your legal options are. For a start, the amounts owed to most people would likely fall into the realm of small claims and small claims is an area which often requires the person making the claim to be present at the hearing. It always requires you to prove your claim and often requires you to demonstrate that the person you're seeking judgement against has been given an opportunity to pay and didn't - ie, that payment is "overdue".

If you're going to bypass small claims and try for individual lawsuits, then you're running into a real problem both with expense and with the court examining whether or not the activity in which people were engaging with GLBSE was legal. As you can't file a lawsuit anonymously, you are tying yourself to an illegal activity in a legal forum in order to pursue an amount which is probably less than the fines you'd be facing for participating in that activity. You'd be a fool to try to represent yourself in any such action, obviously, and international lawsuits are not cheap - you'd be looking at paying lawyers in at least two locations, and your cause of action is what? That you lost money as a result of Nefario closing down an illegal enterprise? Good luck with that argument.

Edit. Just checked UK Civil Rules. Here's what you're required to do prior to starting court action - including small claims action - against someone in England, Wales and Northern Island. Annex A is especially important.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/pd_pre-action_conduct

Annex A is pretty much the only relevant part of that for small claims court in the UK. Small claims in the UK does NOT require attendance in person unless the claim is disputed.

Anyone claiming would NOT be stating that the lost money because of Nefario closing down an illegal business - as, to date, nefario has issued no statement saying that. If nefario wanted to claim in his response that he had been running an illegal business then that would be up to him, however unless he could demonstrate that YOU knew it was illegal at the time you invested ot wouldn't exactly be much of a defence. The actual procedure/form is pretty simple (unless it's changed massively since I last did one a few years back), however I wouldn't recommend anyone go this route for a few reasons:

1. It's very likely nefario is going to pay everyone/give everyone details on their assets anyway. He's just doing it in the slowest, most convoluted and error-prone manner he could devise.
2. Forget small claims unless you live in the UK.
3. I'm dubious whether, if disputed, it would get to remain a small-claims case - as issues like whether bitcoin have monetary value are likely to be considered too complex for the fast-track system. So would claiming against a partnership where most partners arent known and aren't even UK citizens - trying to pin it all on nefario would likely be too complex an argument for the small-claims procedure.
4. Even if you win it doesn't magically give you anything back. All you get is a judgment saying you are owed a certain amount of money, then the hard part comes - actually getting it. Bear in mind that any claim is against the company, not against nefario the individual (if his partners believe any loss is down to just him then that's a seperate case for them to resolve).

Frankly, #1 is the main issue. Not sure why anyone's even considering legal action when all we've so far is total panic and oncompetence from nefario, nothing which suggests he actually intends to defraud anyone (other than, arguably, his fellow share-holders). My main worry right now is that he'll do something dumb like overwrite his database by mistake - or send everyone someone else's list of assets. If he's spewing bitcoins around at random I dread to imagine what lists asset issuers are going to get.