The US Government wants the Voyager-Binance deal to be halted

Key takeaways;

• The US Government wants to halt the $1 billion deal between Binance.US and Voyager Digital.

• The government said the deal should be on hold while key legal objections are ironed out.

• Binance looks prime to acquire Voyager Digital’s assets after FTX’s collapse in November.

Government seeks to halt the Voyager-Binance.US deal

The United States government revealed in a filing on Tuesday that it wants the $1 billion deal offered by Binance.US to buy assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager to be put on hold until key legal objections are ironed out. 

This latest cryptocurrency news comes after an appeal by the U.S. Trustee, a branch of the Department of Justice responsible for bankruptcy cases. The US Trustee has concerns that the deal would ensure that Voyager and its staff would not be held responsible for breaches of tax or securities law.

The filing by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said;

“The Court cannot tell the Government to speak now or forever hold its peace before Voyager and Binance.US wed. Nothing in the Bankruptcy Code permits courts to exculpate parties from liability to the Government for past and future conduct.”

According to Williams, the approval of the deal should be paused, or at least the parts which limit the US Government’s ability to enforce the law, until appeals are properly addressed in higher courts. 

Binance.US looks set to complete Voyager Digital’s acquisition

The appeal comes a week after New York bankruptcy judge Michael Wiles approved the deal. The judge showed considerable skepticism of arguments from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which argued that Voyager’s VGX token might be an unregistered security.

Last month, Voyager Digital sold some of its assets through the US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.

The company received roughly $100 million in the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin for sales of several tokens, including Shiba Inu, Ethereum and the native Voyager Token.

Binance.US took the prime position to acquire Voyager Digital’s assets after the collapse of FTX. FTX previously agreed to acquire Voyager Digital before the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.