As mentioned previously, I hired a law firm in Tokyo to help out with some issues with the bankruptcy.
They have been asked to look into 5 things so far:

1. Sorting out who will be the beneficiary of the creditors’ 200,000 bitcoins, due to the legal technicality of MtGox now being solvent.
2. Looking at options for speeding up the bankruptcy process, in particular finding out if there are any options in managing the Coinlab case.
3. Looking into ways of creditors being represented as a group in order to have a louder voice.
4. Increasing the transparency of the bankruptcy process.
5. Trying to reserve seats for creditors at the Karpeles trial so we know what’s happening in the trial.

1. and 2. are covered over the next 3 articles because they’re a bit lengthy for one post.
3. This will be covered in a future post.
4. If the trustee is opaque about much of the state of the bankruptcy there’s not a lot which can be done to force things. In theory creditors should be given important information about the progress of the bankruptcy, but only if it is not deemed to be against the interests of the creditors for the information to be released. Requests could be made to the trustee for more transparency but it seems unlikely this would have much effect. Complaints could be made to the court but if the trustee claims the secrecy is in the interests of creditors then the court would be likely to rule in his favour. However, it could be possible to apply some gentle pressure and that’s something I’m working towards.
5. We weren’t able to secure any creditor seats in the Karpeles trial – there was a lot of talking but the prosecutor didn’t want to accept requests from an individual creditor because it could be seen as special treatment. I still managed to get into the trial but it was difficult, and my interpreter didn’t get in on day 1. Getting seats in the future will also be problematic but I’m trying to arrange something.