For those effected, the two are not distinguishable. If the bank robs you or loses your money, it is still a loss. When it comes to the law, neither is "I don't know" perhaps gives some lenience at sentencing.
When your business involves holding money on deposit for people, you have a very high moral and legal standard to follow. Unfortunately the very legal leverage and fractional reserve lending by financial institutions makes that line very blurry. A single technical misstep and you are now an insolvent ponzi scheme. Being lazy or "over your head" in this area is like laying down in front of a moving truck.
US laws relating to money laundering and finance are very strict, accidents and lapses still lead to convictions. I don't know anything about Japanese law. I'll take a page from the BNP Paribas case and say that because Mt Gox used US dollars it falls under US jurisdiction and must also follow US law, not just Japan's.
There's a critical difference in this case. If the lost bitcoins are now in the possession of some random hackers then Karpeles is incompetent. If they are in fact effectively in the possession of Karpeles then he is a competent thief. It's hard to tell but in the future they may catch him cashing some coins in to buy a yacht or pay the rent or some such at which point it would be distinguishable in a meaningful way. Being in Japan I guess he'd get away with it but in the US they'd be tapping his phones and so on.
When your business involves holding money on deposit for people, you have a very high moral and legal standard to follow. Unfortunately the very legal leverage and fractional reserve lending by financial institutions makes that line very blurry. A single technical misstep and you are now an insolvent ponzi scheme. Being lazy or "over your head" in this area is like laying down in front of a moving truck.
US laws relating to money laundering and finance are very strict, accidents and lapses still lead to convictions. I don't know anything about Japanese law. I'll take a page from the BNP Paribas case and say that because Mt Gox used US dollars it falls under US jurisdiction and must also follow US law, not just Japan's.