Voyager Creditors Reject Alameda’s Attempt to Recover $446M

An attempt by defunct crypto trading firm Alameda Research to extract $446 million it made in loan repayments to bankrupt Voyager Digital has been rejected by both the creditors’ committee and Voyager itself, according to court filings.

Voyager creditors argued that Alameda’s claims should either be equitably subordinated to all other creditor claims, or recharacterized as equity.

The creditors said Alameda’s “inequitable and fraudulent conduct” cost Voyager and the creditors between $114 million to $122 million. The creditors cited prior caselaw that says the court may “rearrange the priorities of creditors’ interests and to place all or part of a wrongdoer’s claim in an inferior status, in order to achieve a just result.”

Alameda, according to the creditors, made a series of false statements to Voyager and its creditors’ committee about its financial strength claiming at one time to have a “bottomless sea of ordinary cryptocurrency."

These claims are why Voyager’s creditors’ committee voted to support the selection of Alameda as the buyer of Voyager’s balance sheet by the slimmest of margins, according to court filings.

“Had the committee known the truth, it never would have allowed the AlamedaFTX [sic] deal,” the filings read. The creditors went on to add that Alameda’s conduct may even constitute a felony.

For its part, Voyager, in court documents filed earlier, says that “Alameda has caused the Debtors and their creditors substantial harm” because they “made a bid for the Debtors’ business that they could never satisfy” under false pretenses.

“They set the Debtors’ restructuring efforts back months, imposed millions of dollars in additional, unnecessary fees and costs on these Debtors’ [estates] when bidding was reopened,” Voyager’s filing reads.

In the end, Binance.US was successful in purchasing Voyager’s balance sheet with the deal being approved by a judge in early January.

Voting for the bankruptcy plan is scheduled to end on Feb. 22 with Voyager expected to be back in court on March 2 to continue the case.

Former senior executives of Alameda Research and its affiliate, crypto exchange FTX, have been charged with wire fraud and other crimes by the U.S. Department of Justice. While some have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with investigators, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty.

UPDATE (Feb. 1, 07:52 UTC): Adds last paragraph.