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The Cape Town High Court has granted a provisional liquidation order against the Stellenbosch-based Bitcoin trading company, Mirror Trading International, whose founder and CEO nothing has been heard from for more than a week.
According to the provisional liquidation order, the court asked the creditors and interested parties to meet again in early March to demonstrate why a final liquidation order should not be granted.
Cape Town attorneys Luitingh and Associates filed one of two settlement requests against the cryptocurrency trading platform on behalf of an MTI client who allegedly had been unable to withdraw funds. The lawyers have also asked creditors to contact them to file claims against MTI.
“The Superior Court Magistrate will now appoint an interim liquidator to urgently take control of the assets and liabilities of the MTI,” they said in a brief statement Tuesday.
The other request was submitted by Vezi & De Beer Attorneys, also on behalf of a client who claimed that they were unable to withdraw funds.
The liquidation requests come after the Financial Sector Conduct Authority announced earlier this month that the trading platform was, in its opinion, an illegal operation.
The regulator said MTI appeared to have misled customers and violated various laws, and that an investigation had found that MTI was not licensed to perform financial services. MTI has previously defended the legality of its deals, jealously accusing critics of its success.
While the court’s order will now be served at MTI’s registered business facilities, it is unclear whether the court will be able to reach the group’s founder and CEO, Johann Steynberg.
According to two notices sent to members by the MTI leadership on a Telegram channel used for updates, Steynberg left South Africa in early December and may be in Brazil.
This appears to be confirmed in a letter included in court documents written by MTI’s former attorneys, Ulrich Roux and Associates, who stated on December 21 that Steynberg “is no longer in South Africa.” The lawyers, in the same letter, announced that they “had no choice” but to retire as MTI’s attorneys of record.
Fin24 was unable to reach Steynberg for comment on his cell phone. MTI did not respond to previous email requests for comment on the liquidation request.
