Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles declined to delay the $1.3 billion sale of crypto lender Voyager Digital to Binance.US, saying that Voyager customers should not be forced to wait out a challenge by the Department of Justice that is unlikely to succeed, Reuters reported. Judge Wiles ruled on Wednesday that the department had mischaracterized the scope of legal protections he had granted to Voyager employees for actions to carry out the sale and rebalance its crypto portfolio. Judge Wiles, who is overseeing Voyager's chapter 11 process, approved its bankruptcy plan last week. The government can "can step in at any time" if it believes illegal transactions are happening, but has not presented any evidence that Voyager's crypto transactions are illegal, Judge Wiles said. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Office of the U.S. Trustee, the Justice Department's bankruptcy watchdog, both filed appeals last week. They argued that the protections could rubber stamp crypto transactions that might be illegal under U.S. securities laws.
