U.S. Justice Department Opposes Voyager Digital’s Sale to Binance.US, Appeals Judge’s Decision – Here’s the Latest

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Jaroslaw Adamowski

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Jaroslaw Adamowski

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October 23, 2023

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Just a day after a judge authorized bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital to sell its assets to crypto exchange Binance.US, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attempted to block the sale by filing an appeal that could derail it.

The U.S. Trustee’s Office, responsible for overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases and private trustees, filed an appeal that has been registered with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Earlier this month, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles gave the green light to Voyager’s restructuring plan at a hearing in New York, enabling the collapsed lender to sell its assets to Binance.US under a deal estimated to be worth about $1.3 billion. 

Wiles authorized the restructuring plan in spite of an objection filed by the U.S. securities markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

The judge dismissed the agency’s opposition to the planned deal, ignoring the SEC’s concerns over Binance.US running an unregistered securities exchange.

Should the sale go through, Voyager’s customers would be allowed to make withdrawals, with an estimated recovery rate of 73% of the value of their deposits at the time when the lender filed for bankruptcy. 

If the deal is scrapped and Voyager does not find another buyer for its assets, the collapsed company could also make a decision to liquidate itself. This, however, would most likely generate significantly smaller returns to its creditors, according to the Voyager Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors.

“The Binance.US transaction will result in greater recoveries for creditors than a self-liquidation,” the committee said in a tweet last January. 

https://www.twitter.com/VoyagerUCC/status/1612824154209746944?s=20

“Binance.US agreed to make a number of important changes. To summarize, crypto will only be transferred from Voyager to https://Binance.US when creditors can immediately withdraw it, and the transfers will happen weekly,” according to the committee.

The troubled crypto lender filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy last July. The move triggered a bidding war between major exchange Binance and rival platform FTX. 

In October 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried’s exchange obtained a U.S. bankruptcy court’s approval for its plan to acquire Voyager’s assets. However, FTX’s collapse shortly afterward prevented it from finalizing the deal, and paved the way for the return of Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao’s exchange to the negotiations table. 

As a result, in mid-December 2022, Binance.US announced it would take over Voyager’s assets but the SEC expressed its opposition to the deal a month later in January.