Binance US gets court approval to buy Voyager; Meta, formerly Facebook, continues layoffs; Judge Accepts SEC and Ripple’s Proposal.
The court approved the acquisition of Voyager Digital by Binance’s US arm, despite objections from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.
According to Bloomberg’s report, Binance US managed to get court approval to buy Voyager Digital.
Binance US has received court approval to acquire Voyager Digital in a $1 billion deal, following tough bankruptcy proceedings.
Judge opposes regulators’ complaints
Bankruptcy judge Michael Wiles has announced that he will allow the company to be sold to Binance US so that Voyager can fulfill its payment plans properly. Wiles denied allegations that the deal violated federal law.
In their appeal, the SEC and federal lawyers said the current payment scheme could undermine efforts to regulate cryptocurrency markets.
Attorneys for the SEC and the Justice Department opposed the legal protection given to configuration consultants. The protection given to these advisors prevents potential lawsuits against them for implementing a bankruptcy plan.
Wiles expressed disappointment with the stance of the SEC and the Justice Department and said that no bankruptcy case will be resolved if individuals/entities are prosecuted for following a plan approved by a federal judge.
Before Voyager Digital declared bankruptcy in July, it had taken hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Meta, formerly Facebook, continues layoffs
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is planning new layoffs and will lay off thousands of its employees this week, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Meta, one of the world’s largest technology companies, is parting ways with more employees, as well as a 13 percent decrease in the number of employees in November, in an effort to become a more efficient organization. In previous rounds of cuts, Meta had laid off 11,000 workers in its first major layoff. The company is also working to get its organization back together, Bloomberg reported in February.
Among the most well-known supporters of Metaverse is Facebook’s parent company Meta, which has recently changed its brand. The company has made significant investments in the development of virtual and augmented reality technologies, which it believes will be an important part of the future of the metaverse. Meta has already launched many products in this space, such as the Oculus VR headset and the Horizon Workrooms platform that allows people to collaborate in virtual reality.
However, unfortunately, global inflation and recession concerns also hit giant companies. Meta, on the other hand, is at the top of the list of companies that make layoffs.
Judge Accepts SEC and Ripple’s Proposal
Developments continue to come from Ripple and the SEC, the increasingly legendary litigation supporters of the crypto world. On the one hand, new supporters continue to come to the case, on the other hand, the judge’s new decisions gradually reduce the foggy atmosphere about the course of the case.
Judge Analisa Torres “partially” accepted the demands of both parties, according to new documents that have recently emerged.
Torres announced his decision on motions submitted by both parties to exclude expert testimony in the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple.
According to the latest case document shared by James K. Filan, who has been constantly sharing about the case, the founder of Evernode, the Layer-2 network of XRP Ledger, emphasized the impartiality of the judge.
However, looking at the document, it seems that the winner in the court’s final decision is the XRP holders. As pointed out by Attorney John E. Deaton, who represented more than 75,000 XRP holders in the case, the judge partially granted Ripple’s request to have the SEC’s No. 1 expert’s testimony removed, and rejected the expert’s opinion.
The last decisions taken in the case, which continues actively, have a very important importance. So much so that the latest decisions make the case gradually turn in favor of Ripple.
Responding to the latest developments, Jeremy Hogan, a pro-XRP attorney and a partner at Hogan & Hogan, implied that the recent decision now makes it harder for the SEC to prove that XRP holders have reasonable profit expectations from Ripple’s efforts.