BitMEX faces Celsius lawsuit ahead of exchange closure

The Celsius bankruptcy estate sued five BitMEX-linked companies, alleging fraud, market manipulation and wrongful liquidations during the March 2020 market crash. 

The complaint was filed on Sept. 12 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York by Celsius entities acting through estate representative Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC). Defendants include HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings and HDR Global Services.

The estate alleged that BitMEX wrongfully liquidated and seized 1,325.84 BTC in collateral from Celsius on March 12, 2020, and 5,034.33 BTC from investment fund JST the following day. JST subsequently assigned the related claims to the estate, according to the filing.

The lawsuit seeks the recovery of Bitcoin worth nearly $490 million at the time of writing, and was filed 11 days before BitMEX is scheduled to stop exchange services on Sept. 23.

Cointelegraph reached out to the Celsius estate and BitMEX for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

Celsius alleges BitMEX intensified 2020 sell-off

The Celsius estate alleges that BitMEX controlled the prices used to trigger liquidations, the engine that executed them and the insurance fund that received proceeds from some liquidated positions.