Top court confirms damages payment to investors over Bithumb service outage

SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) -- The Supreme Court has finalized a ruling that ordered damages payment totaling 251.4 million won (US$202,400) to investors over a service outage at the country's largest cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, officials said Friday.

Transaction service at Bithumb was put on hold for 1 1/2 hours on Nov. 12, 2017, after the average amount of orders per hour instantly doubled to throttle transaction flows.

More than a hundred investors filed a damages suit against the operator of the cryptocurrency exchange, saying they suffered financial losses due to the service outage during which cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum Classic logged steep price falls.

A district had ruled against the investors, but the appellate court later overturned the ruling, ordering the Bithumb operator to pay damages ranging from 8,000 won to 8 million won to each of the 132 investors. The ruling was finalized by the Supreme Court on Thursday.

The appellate court ruled at that time, "The burden or the cost of technological failures should be shouldered by the service operator, not services users who pay commission for the service."

pbr@yna.co.kr
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