On March 15, 2023, Judge Michael Wiles of the District Court for the Southern District of New York upheld his previous approval of Voyager Digital’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan and rejected the United States government arguments to delay the acquisition of the insolvent brokerage firm Voyager by Binance.US.
The Court dismissed the government’s request for a stay of the confirmation order, which would have delayed the bankruptcy plan’s fulfillment by two weeks. The Court also ordered the removal of a clause to prevent legal action by American authorities against those involved in the deal.
Judge Wiles stated that delays in the deal would hurt the interests of Voyager’s clients, who are waiting to get their funds back. The bankruptcy plan involves selling assets worth billions of dollars to Binance.US to generate the necessary funds to reimburse customers.
The US government filed an appeal on March 14, 2023, alleging that the bankruptcy plan involved fraud, theft, or tax avoidance. However, Judge Wiles ruled to proceed with the bankruptcy plan because he believed the accusations were exaggerated and mischaracterized. He also confirmed that the current stay, set to expire on March 20, 2023, would remain in effect.
On March 7, 2023, the Court authorized the acquisition of Voyager by Binance.US and approved the trading platform’s closure and the issuance of reimbursement tokens to affected Voyager clients. While assenting to the deal, Judge Wiles rejected the US SEC’s claims that transferring funds from Voyager to Binance.US would violate US securities regulations.
The SEC had raised concerns that the rebalancing of funds may require multiple cryptocurrency transactions, which may breach specific provisions of the Securities Act. The regulator also claimed that the disclosure statements failed to consider the potential illegality of the transactions. These claims could impact the anticipated 51% recovery of funds scheduled to be distributed to account holders and Voyager claimants.
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