Voyager creditors will pay $5.1 million for lawyers’ services

The law firm McDermott Will & Emery sent a bill to the official creditors’ committee of the bankrupt crypto broker Voyager Digital for $5.1 million for three months of work.

According to the document, total attorney compensation from July 2022 to May 2023 amounted to $16.48 million. Of that, Voyager has already paid $8.97 million.

In the court documents it is stated that another law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, for the same period sought $28.46 million from Voyager and related debtors. To date the company has paid $23.38 million.

In April alone, Kirkland & Ellis demanded $1.12 million from the crypto broker as reimbursement of expenses and fees. Earlier, the firm’s lawyers reserved $259.6 million for court costs, administrative claims and other “withholdings”.

On July 5, 2022, Voyager Digital filed a bankruptcy filing. The company reported total obligations in a range from $1 billion to $10 billion.

The broker is one of the creditors of hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. The latter failed to repay a debt of 15,250 BTC and $350 million USDC, therefore in June Voyager Digital sent him a default notice.

In December 2022, Binance.US offered the highest bid for Voyager’s assets — $1.02 billion. However regulators, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Department of Financial Services, opposed the deal.

During the hearings in the case, regulators’ representatives said that Binance’s U.S. unit runs an unregistered securities exchange. The U.S. Department of Justice also opposed. On March 28, 2023, the court stopped the sale of assets.

Earlier in May, Voyager Digital said that it was preparing for liquidation and payments to creditors ‘within a few weeks’. Payments are planned in fiat and cryptocurrency. The company’s clients will receive 36 cents on the dollar of assets.