Mt. Gox Co. principal Mark Karpeles is beyond the reach of a U.S. court where he and the bankrupt Bitcoin exchange are being sued for consumer fraud by two American depositors, his attorney told a federal judge.

Karpeles and Tibanne KK, another of his companies named in the lawsuit filed in Chicago federal court in February, will submit papers asking U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman to rule he has no jurisdiction over them because they’re outside the country and haven’t properly been served with papers that started the suit, defense lawyer Eric Macey said in court today.

Karpeles lives in Japan, where Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 28, weeks after announcing it couldn’t account for more than 700,000 customer bitcoins. Each unit of the virtual currency is worth $447.35 today, according to the value-tracking website CoinDesk.