Voyager’s Creditors Charged $5.2M By Law Firm in Latest Bill, Adds up to $16.5M

Creditors of bankrupt crypto lending platform Voyager Digital will pay more than $5 million for the third interim fee period, which ended in mid-May.

In total, McDermott Will & Emery has charged the Voyager creditors’ group roughly $16.5 million for its services for less than a year.

Legal Expenses

McDermott Will & Emery, the law firm that represents the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the bankruptcy case of cryptocurrency platform Voyager Digital Holding Inc., has billed the creditors’ group $5.17 million for the third interim fee period of 1 March 2023 and 18 May 2023. 

For the entire fee period from 22 July 2022 to 18 May 2023, the law firm has billed the creditors’ group $16.48 million. 

Initially, $11.2 million was earmarked to be paid to the law firm for its services. So far, the creditors’ group has paid out $8.9 million. A big part of the bill – $1 million – accrued on planning and disclosure settlement. Discussing sale options, meeting buyers, and examining objections were significant in this part of the work. And it mostly involved Voyager’s sale to FTX.

Failed Deals 

After filing for bankruptcy, Voyager Digital was close to being acquired twice. In October, FTX won the bid to buy it for $1.4 billion, piping Binance in the race. However, the creditors opposed the deal as it included a clause that provided immunity, or “broad releases,” from future bankruptcy lawsuits for top Voyager executives. Subsequently, FTX landed in a liquidity crisis leading it to file for bankruptcy.  

After suffering huge losses due to its exposure to Singapore-headquartered hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Voyager Digital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2022. 

In April, Binance.US pulled out of a $ 1-billion deal to purchase Voyager’s assets following issues with local regulators. 

“While our hope throughout this process was to help Voyager’s customers access their crypto in kind, the hostile and uncertain regulatory climate in the United States has introduced an unpredictable operating environment impacting the entire American business community,” Binance’s US affiliate said in a statement.