Late Thursday evening, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an appeal challenging the decision of a New York bankruptcy judge to approve Binance.billion-dollar US’s plan to acquire the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital. The judge’s decision was made earlier in the day.
The appeal was lodged by the United States Trustee’s Office, which is a branch of the Department of Justice responsible for monitoring bankruptcies. It was submitted just one day after Judge Michael Wiles gave his approval to the deal following a contentious hearing that lasted for four days straight.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other state regulators, together with the SEC in the United States, have all expressed their adamant opposition to the planned transaction. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) objected to the purchase of Voyager and said that Binance.US may be in violation of federal securities laws since it operates an unregistered stock exchange in the United States. This objection was lodged a month ago.
Judge Wiles, who presided over the hearing, told the attorneys who were present that the Bankruptcy Code “doesn’t anticipate an unlimited length of time.” Despite this, the judge did not appear to be swayed by the SEC’s worries.
“It is necessary to take action. Wiles stated that “we have debtors who are waiting and who in the midst of all of this uncertainty have no access to property in which they’ve spent, in some cases, their life savings,” and because of this, “we have to take some kind of action.” “There is nothing else we can do.”
Customers of Voyager would likely receive a recovery of around 73% of their funds under the terms of the planned sale to Binance.US. The proposal, which was formulated after FTX, Voyager’s previous top bidder, filed for its own bankruptcy in November, received backing from 97% of Voyager’s creditors. The plan was formulated after FTX, Voyager’s previous top bidder, filed for its own bankruptcy.
