A bankruptcy judge approved a deal for Binance.US to acquire bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital’s crypto assets.
In a Tuesday court hearing reported by Reuters, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles signed off on Voyager’s restructuring plan centered around a $1.3 billion asset buyout by Binance.US.
In doing so, the judge overruled objections to the deal from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other state regulators. Last month, Texas’ securities regulator and banking department filed an objection to the proposed deal, following a limited objection filed by the SEC in January.
The SEC’s initial objection to the deal was primarily concerned with how Binance.US could afford a transaction of such magnitude. However, in a court hearing on Friday, SEC senior trial attorney William Uptegrove argued that the regulator believes Binance.US could be operating an unregistered securities exchange.
Judge Wiles addressed these assertions in another hearing on Monday, asking SEC senior trial attorney Therese Scheuer whether Binance or Voyager could have known about these claims before the statements made on Friday.
“Bankruptcy Code doesn’t contemplate an endless period of time,” said Wiles on Monday, stressing the urgency of the restructuring process.
“[W]e can’t just put everything on pause just because we don’t know for sure how the regulators will eventually make up their minds on points that they seem to have been debating for years,” he said.
The deal’s approval is undoubtedly a big win for Binance.US which has faced an added layer of regulatory scrutiny of late, and Voyager creditors who could potentially recover 73% of the value of their deposits at the time of Voyager’s bankruptcy filing.
The ruling could set in motion the process of transferring customer accounts from Voyager to Binance, and when it is closed Voyager customers will be able to make withdrawals for the first time since last summer.
