Celsius' Official Creditor Committee Denies Rejected Bids
Terrill Dicki Feb 02, 2023 09:36
Celsius Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors attorneys have criticised crypto blogger Tiffany Fong for releasing information about prospective Celsius offers, saying it would hurt negotiations.
There have been rumours circulating that the bids for Celsius' crypto assets have been turned down, however the attorney who represents the official creditor committee for Celsius has refuted such rumours.
Attorneys from White & Case LLP, Gregory Pesce and Aaron Colodny, addressed the so-called "leaked" bids for Celsius' crypto assets that were shared by cryptocurrency blogger Tiffany Fong during a "town hall" event held on Twitter Space on January 31. The event followed the examiner's report on Celsius.
Pesce said that the notion that the bids had been turned down was completely and utterly incorrect.
The post that Fong made on Substack on January 27 pointed to at least five companies that were reportedly interested in placing a bid on Celsius' crypto assets. These companies included Binance, Bank To The Future, Galaxy Digital, crypto trading company Cumberland DRW, and digital asset investment firm NovaWulf.
During that time, Fong said that the bids had been "abandoned for the most part," which was a reference to a previous remark made by a Celsius lawyer declaring that the bids they had received up to that point "had not been persuasive."
On the other hand, the counsel for the Celsius Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (UCC) maintained that this was not the situation at all.
There has been no decision made on the proposals. That is completely false, and I have high hopes that I will be able to set the record straight about that misconception today.
The attorney would not clarify whether the bids that were referenced in the leak were true or not, but he did say that it was "regrettable" since it decreases the freedom that the committee has in the process of bargaining.
"Every day, we and the debtors are delivering public communications and private messages to possible investors about where they are in the process," revealed Pesce. "These messages inform the potential investors about where they stand in the process."
"The messages that we sent them are very planned out and structured so that we can play different parties against each other and make sure that we get the last dollar for Celsius account holders because the success of that process will determine recoveries here," we wrote in one of our emails. "The messages that we sent them are very planned out and structured."
"It's thus unfortunate that this leak occurred," the speaker said.
"It's especially terrible that this has been commercialised by the source of that leak for the purpose of advertising her paid-for content page on Patreon," he added, referring to Fong. "It's particularly sad that this has been monetized by the source of that leak."
Fong has given a response to the charge, in which he argues that the bids that were stolen are completely free and there is "no paywall."
She said that the leaked bids are NOT hidden behind a paywall and that this is an odd assertion.
The crypto blogger shared information on the five bids on Substack the previous week, and as of the time of this writing, it is still possible to read the information without making a payment.
Pesce said that they are now conducting an investigation into how the leak happened and added that there was "serious worry that a possible investor that was engaged in the process may have been attempting to influence it for their personal gain."
"With all of that being stated, we are putting in a lot of effort to guarantee that we will be able to make a decision as swiftly as possible and put an end to this bankruptcy. "We're attempting to minimise the impact of that leak as much as we can," he added.
In light of the most recent examiner's findings on Celsius, the UCC lawyers provided some more commentary as well.
"I'll be quite straightforward with you: the actions that Mr. Mashinsky and many other members of his staff took were unethical. Mr. Mashinsky has been dishonest. "By manipulating the tapes, they were able to cover up a good deal of his lying," Colodny stated.
They put their own interests above that of the firm, and more significantly, they put their own interests ahead of those of the account holders.
The attorneys for the UCC have stated that they will continue to investigate a variety of options for recovery, such as rebranding the company as a new, publicly traded "recovery corporation," selling off some of the company's mining equipment, and investigating "winding down Celsius or transferring crypto to a third party."
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