The United States Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles pronounced on March 7 that the bankruptcy crypto lender Voyager Digital can sell over $1 billion of its assets to Binance.US despite the objection by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The ruling was made by Wiles after reviewing four days of arguments presented by Voyager and the U.S. SEC.
On Jan. 4, SEC and other regulatory authorities filed a limited objection seeking more information on Binance.US and Voyager deal and ordered the duo to halt the acquisition process.
Meanwhile, the latest pronouncement is a step in the right direction for Voyager as it would ease the crypto lender platform out of bankruptcy.
Wiles stated that the trading platform can zeal the sale with Binance.US and ensure that repayment tokens are allocated to affected Voyager customers, which must meet at least 73% of what they were initially owed.
However, he rejected a couple of premises raised by the SEC that the redistribution of the funds from Voyager to Binance.US would contradict U.S. securities laws.
According to Wiles:
“I cannot put the entire case into an indeterminate deep freeze while regulators figure out whether they believe there are problems with the transaction and plan.”
Despite the court resolution, Peter M. Aronoff, a lawyer with the Department of Justice expressed dissatisfaction over the judgement and stated that it is considering appealing the judgement.
Developments Between Voyager and Binance.US
Prior to the recent court pronouncement, Binance.US and Voyager have been making progress with numerous Voyager customers seeking Binance to takeover the bankrupt company.
Interestingly, Binance.US announced in Dec. 2022 that it has set aside $1.022 billion to acquire assets belonging to the crypto lender but the efforts have been repeatedly frustrated by the U.S. SEC
Given the latest judgement, it seems the coast is getting clearer. The price of Voyager’s token, VGX, surged by 32.9% from $0.37 to $0.55 following the news. At the time of writing, it is trading at $0.57 according to CoinMarketCap data.
