The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has filed an objection to Celsius Network’s reorganization plan based in part on the regulator’s own ongoing lawsuit with crypto exchange Coinbase.
On Sept. 22, the SEC filed a limited objection and reservation of rights with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York over Celsius’ most recently proposed restructuring plan. The fourth revision of the bankruptcy plan, filed on Aug. 15, followed an initial proposal in March but has not been approved.
A supplement to the reorganization plan proposed a distribution services agreement with Coinbase, which Celsius sought to file under seal. The SEC claimed in its objection that the deal may require Coinbase to “go far beyond the services of a distribution agent,” potentially providing services at issue in the commission’s civil suit filed in June.
“The Debtors have confirmed that they do not intend for Coinbase to provide brokerage services to the Debtors, despite the language in the Coinbase Agreements to the contrary,” says the filing. “However, this Court should not be asked to approve a deal where the material terms are missing or inconsistent.”
Revisions to the Celsius restructuring plan have been ongoing since March, while Coinbase faces an SEC lawsuit over allegedly offering unregistered securities. In a Sept. 25 post on X (formerly Twitter), Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and chief legal officer Paul Grewal said the exchange was “proud to engage with Celsius” in its efforts to return user funds:
Coinbase is proud to engage with Celsius to distribute crypto back to its customers. I wonder, why would the SEC object to a trusted US public company taking on this role? We look forward to addressing this with the bankruptcy court and undertaking our important role to make… https://t.co/5i1aJDiPXp
The bankruptcy court filing followed Celsius announcing a deal with Core Scientific in which the mining firm agreed to sell a mining data center to Celsius in exchange for $14 million in cash and settling all existing legislation between the two firms. According to Core Scientific, Celsius had defaulted on its payments since filing for bankruptcy in July 2022.
In August, the bankruptcy court approved Celsius sending out digital ballots to vote on the restructuring plan in October. The next hearing in the bankruptcy case is scheduled for Oct. 5.
There’s no question that Kemi Badenoch’s on the ropes after a low-energy first year as leader that has seen the Conservative Party slide backwards by pretty much every metric.
But on Wednesday, the embattled leader came out swinging with a show-stopping pledge to scrap stamp duty, which left the hall delirious. “I thought you’d like that one,” she said with a laugh as party members cheered her on.
A genuine surprise announcement – many in the shadow cabinet weren’t even told – it gave the Conservatives and their leader a much-needed lift after what many have dubbed the lost year.
Image: Ms Badenoch with her husband, Hamish. Pic: PA
Ms Badenoch tried to answer that criticism this week with a policy blitz, headlined by her promise on stamp duty.
This is a leader giving her party some red meat to try to help her party at least get a hearing from the public, with pledges on welfare, immigration, tax cuts and policing.
In all of it, a tacit admission from Ms Badenoch and her team that as politics speeds up, they have not kept pace, letting Reform UK and Nigel Farage run ahead of them and grab the microphone by getting ahead of the Conservatives on scrapping net zero targets or leaving the ECHR in order to deport illegal migrants more easily.
Ms Badenoch is now trying to answer those criticisms and act.
At the heart of her offer is £47bn of spending cuts in order to pay down the nation’s debt pile and fund tax cuts such as stamp duty.
All of it is designed to try to restore the party’s reputation for economic competence, against a Labour Party of tax rises and a growing debt burden and a Reform party peddling “fantasy economics”.
She needs to do something, and fast. A YouGov poll released on the eve of her speech put the Conservatives joint third in the polls with the Lib Dems on 17%.
That’s 10 percentage points lower than when Ms Badenoch took power just under a year ago. The crisis, mutter her colleagues, is existential. One shadow cabinet minister lamented to me this week that they thought it was “50-50” as to whether the party can survive.
Image: (L-R) Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith, shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins and shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly. Pic: PA
Ms Badenoch had to do two things in her speech on Wednesday: the first was to try to reassert her authority over her party. The second was to get a bit of attention from the public with a set of policies that might encourage disaffected Tories to look at her party again.
On the first point, even her critics would have to agree that she had a successful conference and has given herself a bit of space from the constant chatter about her leadership with a headline-grabbing policy that could give her party some much-needed momentum.
On the second, the promise of spending control coupled with a retail offer of tax cuts does carve out a space against the Labour government and Reform.
But the memory of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget, the chaos of Boris Johnson’s premiership, and the failure of Sunak to cut NHS waiting lists or tackle immigration still weigh on the Conservative brand.
Ms Badenoch might have revived the room with her speech, but whether that translates into a wider revival around the country is very hard to read.
Ms Badenoch leaves Manchester knowing she pulled off her first conference speech as party leader: what she will be less sure about is whether it will be her last.
I thought she tacitly admitted that to me when she pointedly avoided answering the question of whether she would resign if the party goes backwards further in the English council, Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd elections next year.
“Let’s see what the election result is about,” was her reply.
That is what many in her party are saying too, because if Ms Badenoch cannot show progress after 18 months in office, she might see her party turn to someone else.