A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order and expedited discovery in the class-action lawsuit filed against MtGox Inc., Tibanne KK, and their CEO, Mark Karpeles, thereby freezing all of their American assets immediately. A printed copy of the judge’s order was not immediately available but likely will be published late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

The case, formally known as Greene v. MtGox Inc., MtGox KK, Tibanne KK, and Mark Karpeles , was filed in Illinois last month and awaits the judge's formal certification of the users as a class. The lead plaintiff, Graham Greene of Chicago, alleges that he lost $25,000 in bitcoins from MtGox. The lawsuit accuses MtGox of fraud, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract, among other allegations.

One of Greene’s attorneys, Christopher Dore, told Ars that on Tuesday, Judge Gary Feinerman also allowed for expedited discovery of the other three remaining entities named in the case.

Neither Karpeles nor MtGox’s attorneys from the law firm of Baker McKenzie responded immediately to Ars’ request for comment.

MtGox KK, the Japanese legal corporation, had previously filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan last month and then in the United States. The US filing attempted to halt the Greene case, as well as another pending lawsuit involving CoinLab.

According to court documents filed in federal court in Dallas late Sunday, Karpeles told the court that the company has approximately $63.9 million in liabilities and approximately $37.7 million in assets.

Karpeles also mentioned that the company “lost” 744,408 bitcoins (around $463 million at present) due to a “defect or ‘bug’ in the Bitcoin software algorithm being exploited by one or more persons who ‘hacked’ the Bitcoin network.” He also said that the loss, combined with an additional loss of around 100,000 of the company’s own bitcoins, constituted “around seven percent of all bitcoins in the world.”

In those same court filings, MtGox KK asked the federal bankruptcy court in Texas to extend such bankruptcy protection to the other three related entities that Greene is suing: the American sister corporation (MtGox Inc.), Tibanne KK (MtGox KK’s parent corporation in Japan), and CEO Mark Karpeles, the majority shareholder of all of those companies. But only MtGox KK filed for such bankruptcy protection, not the remaining three, which stays Greene's suit against MtGox KK for now.

“Our view is that these companies are alter egos of each other, including Karpeles. He is those companies and they are him, so we should be able to get a lot of information about what has happened,” Dore told Ars. “We will be issuing written discovery in the next day or two to all of those entities and to Mr. Karpeles himself, and we will be issuing deposition.”

Dore added that the expedited discovery would allow Greene’s lawyers to gain access to bank records and other details pertinent to the case starting today rather than waiting months. When asked if the judge’s Tuesday ruling had more to do with the bankruptcy filing, Dore said no.

“It is more the urgency of the facts and circumstances of this case,” he added. “There is an enormous amount of money and bitcoin missing. There is a lot of speculation that there has been money moving out of MtGox accounts, and frankly, we have alleged fraud in this case. When that was raised in court this morning the representatives of MtGox KK did not dispute that fact. We may add additional defendants, possibly including [MtGox’s] bank.”