Celsius seeks court approval to start repaying customers by year-end
Embattled crypto lender Celsius Network has told a judge it plans to start paying back its customers by year’s end, amid an Oct. 2 hearing seeking approval for its reorganization plan.
In his opening statements at the confirmation hearing in New York, Celsius’ legal counsel Christopher Koenig said the new company dubbed “NewCo” will emerge from the proceedings with $450 million in seed funding.
A filing on Sept. 29 shows that Celsius plans to partially repay its creditors using $2.03 billion in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) and stock in the new company.
#Celsius will distribute at least $2.03B of crypto to Creditors.
Meanwhile, NewCo will be seeded with up to $450 million in crypto.— Celsius NewCo Community (@CelsiusNewCo) October 2, 2023
NewCo has been backed by a group of companies in a consortium called Fahrenheit LLC which will manage the mining and staking business.
The judge presiding over the case, Martin Glenn, is considering whether to approve Celsius’s restructuring plan. The plan will also need to be cleared by security regulators. Despite garnering an overwhelming majority of votes in favor, it is being challenged by some creditors, according to reports.
“The Debtors arrive at Confirmation with a Plan that has the support of over 95% of voting Account Holders by both number and dollar amount,” Celsius stated in a filing presented at the confirmation hearing.
Related: Celsius creditors flag renewed phishing attacks ahead of bankruptcy plan
If the Celsius plan is approved, it would be one of the first failed crypto platforms from 2022 to be resurrected in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
Celsius customers have been waiting to be made whole ever since the company halted withdrawals in June 2022 following the collapse of the Terra/Luna ecosystem.
Magazine: Simon Dixon on bankruptcies, Celsius and Elon Musk: Crypto Twitter Hall of Flame
The change in rhetoric followed a US dollar-pegged stablecoin boom in 2025 due to the passage of key legislation in the United States.
The license came eight months after the regulator granted the company in-principle approval, and a few weeks after Bybit secured a non-operational license for Dubai.
Sir Keir Starmer has denied any ministers were involved in the collapse of the trial of alleged Chinese spies.
Christopher Cash, 30, a former parliamentary researcher, and teacher Christopher Berry, 33, were accused of spying for China, but weeks before their trial was due to begin, it was dropped.
Berry, of Witney, Oxfordshire, and Cash, of Whitechapel, east London denied the allegations.
Politics Latest: Starmer “less interested” in Blair than ceasefire
Sir Keir, his ministers and national security adviser Jonathan Powell have faced accusations they were involved in the trial being dropped.
The prime minister has maintained that because the last Conservative government had not designated China as a threat to national security, his government could not provide evidence to that effect, which the director of public prosecutions Stephen Parkinson said was required to meet the threshold for prosecution.
Mr Parkinson had blamed ministers for failing to provide the crucial evidence needed to proceed.
During a trade visit to India, the prime minister was asked whether any minister, or Mr Powell, were involved in the decision not to provide the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) with evidence that, at the time of the alleged offences, China represented a threat to national security.
He replied: “I can be absolutely clear no ministers were involved in any of the decisions since this government’s been in in relation to the evidence that’s put before the court on this issue.”
He did not mention Mr Powell specifically.
Read more:
Blame game over trial collapse. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
Christopher Cash (left) and Christopher Berry had the charges against them dropped in September. Pics: Reuters
Earlier this week, Mr Parkinson took the unusual step of sending MPs a letter to say the government had refused to label Beijing an enemy, which led to the case being dropped.
Sir Keir reiterated his line that the case could only rely on evidence from the period the pair were accused of spying, from 2021 to 2023, when the Conservatives were in government.
He said: “The evidence in this case was drawn up at the time and reflected the position as it was at the time,” the PM said in India.
“And that has remained the situation from start to finish.
“That is inevitably the case because in the United Kingdom, you can only try people on the basis of the situation as it was at the time.
“You can’t try people on the basis of the situation, as it now is or might be in the future, and therefore, the only evidence that a court would ever admit on this would be evidence of what the situation was at the time.
“It’s not a party political point. It’s a matter of law.”
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Is China an enemy to the UK?
Sir Keir’s assertion has been called into question by former top civil servants and legal experts.
Mark Elliott, professor of public law at the University of Cambridge, told Sky News there is no legal requirement for a country to be declared an enemy for someone to be tried for breaching the Official Secrets Act.
He said the current government was “cherry picking” what the previous government had said about China to claim they did not regard them as a threat to national security.
However, there are several examples of the Tory government saying China was a national security threat during the time Berry and Cash were accused of spying.
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