On Wednesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), New York state regulator, and Attorney General Letitia James submitted new filings in the New York Southern District Bankruptcy Court to oppose Voyager Digital’s proposed $1 billion sale to Binance.US, the United States affiliate of Binance.
The regulators cited several objections opposing the deal, such as inadequate disclosures, insufficient customer protection, and violating New York state regulations. This was unsurprising as the SEC had issued a limited objection to the deal earlier in the year.
NYDFS and Attorney General Join the SEC to Oppose the Voyager-Binance Deal
State and federal regulators in the US opposed Voyager Digital’s sale to Binance.US in the new fillings on Wednesday, citing multiple concerns over the $1 billion deal. Some of these include a lack of adequate disclosure and the fact that Binance.US does not have a license in New York state, among other things.
In one of the filings, the SEC states that Voyager’s plan to sell its assets to Binance.US fails “to adequately describe whether third parties, including Binance.US affiliates or foreign persons or entities, will have access to the keys for customer wallets or control over anyone with access to such wallets.” In addition, it also doesn’t “sufficiently explain what safeguards have been established” to make sure that user funds are not transferred off the Binance.US platform.
New York State’s Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and Attorney General Letitia James also published two separate filings on Feb. 22 to object to the deal, accusing the collapsed Voyager Digital of illicitly serving customers in the state.
The crypto broker “onboarded New York customers and thus illegally operated a virtual currency business within the state without a license,” breaching state laws and regulations, NYDFS said in its filing. The plan also takes advantage of New York users who cannot reclaim their crypto funds for six months while Binance.US obtains approval in the state.
The SEC’s Crackdown on Crypto Intensifies
The new filings come just several weeks after the SEC filed a “limited objection” to the deal, claiming Binance.US did not reveal sufficient information in its disclosure statement. The securities regulator demanded more information on the nature of its business operations, adding the transaction agreement lacked details on the crypto exchange’s ability to finalize the acquisition.
Binance.US offered $1.02 billion to buy Voyager Digital assets in December 2022, a few months after the crypto broker filed for bankruptcy protection. The crypto exchange said it wanted to help Voyager customers to recover their funds and let them connect to Binance.US.
Meanwhile, the SEC has been intensifying its scrutiny of crypto in recent weeks, focusing mainly on alleged sales of unregistered securities. As a result, the regulator forced the crypto exchange Kraken to shut down its staking business. Moreover, the agency cracked down on BUSD issuer Paxos, after which NYDFS ordered the blockchain infrastructure firm to stop minting new tokens.
This article originally appeared on The Tokenist
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