Mizuho Bank has been dealt a major blow after a U.S. court denied the bank’s bid to dismiss the charges filed against it in a class action lawsuit related to its relationship with the now defunct Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange.

In February 2014, Mt. Gox customers in the United States filed a class action lawsuit against the Japanese bank, claiming that their losses were inflated because Mizuho limited withdrawals from their bitcoin exchange accounts in mid-2013. The customers claimed the withdrawal delays were due to “technical problems,” and accused the bank of standing “silent while allowing the public to continue being duped.”

The bank, a part of the Mizuho Financial Group, initially argued that the case belongs in Japan. But U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman dismissed that reasoning on grounds that the difficulties of trying the case is nothing more than what is “routinely tolerated by courts.”

But the undeterred Mizuho had another reasoning up its sleeve. The bank said the plaintiffs were Mt. Gox’s customers, not the bank’s, which means that they are technically not in a “commercial relationship.”