A bankruptcy court based in New York has provided a green light to Voyager Digital (a tormented crypto brokerage platform) to recompense bonuses to the chief staff participants thereof.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Approves Voyager’s Filing to Give Bonuses to Chief Employees
The exchange submitted a motion filing on 2nd August with the Bankruptcy court of the United States while pursuing to have approval for the Key Employee Retention Plan (KERP) according to which an amount of up to $1.9M would be recompensed to the thirty-eight top employees. They have been categorized as significant for the current operation of the company.
The creditors of the platform, which filed in July this year for bankruptcy, had firstly confronted the KERP payments by it as mentioned in their court filing submitted on 19th August. They mentioned that the priority should be given to the investors’ payment before the supposedly well-compensated employees.
As per the court filings, the creditors’ committee and Voyager had agreed to step back from the resistance against the respective proposal on particular conditions. The most prominent condition is the imposition of operational cost-cutting procedures to stop the drainage of nearly $4.6M. The worth of the KERP payments is nearly 22.5% of the per annum salaries of the eligible workers.
Voyager emphasizes that the status of the respective 38 workers is of core importance for the further progression of the company. As per the platform, these employees perform the operations that are crucial for the debtors, like legal activities, management of the company’s digital assets and cash, basic accounting, as well as the IT infrastructure.
US Trustee Objects to the KERP Proposal of Voyager
Apart from that, the filling also touched on the apprehensions elevated by the Office of the US Trustee, under which the management of bankruptcy cases as well as the private trustees are observed. The KERP proposal was objected to by the U.S. Trustee as the agency claimed that the employees selected to avail retention pay-outs may take into account the insiders and that sufficient information has not been provided by Voyager to validate the respective bonuses.
Michael Wiles, the judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, eventually gave a green signal to KERP payouts-related filing, keeping in view the assertion of the brokerage’s legal team that none of the recipients were appointed, neither did they have anything to do with the venue’s managerial control.