Celsius bid procedures OK’d, employee retention plan shot down

By Sarah Lizee

Olympia, Wash., Nov. 4 – Celsius Network LLC received court approval of the bid procedures for substantially all of its assets, according to an order filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

The order said that if the debtors and the official committee of unsecured creditors jointly decide that a sale of the company’s retail platform assets independent from the debtors’ other assets will maximize value, then the debtors will file a notice of auction for sale of the retail platform assets on the docket on or before Dec. 13.

The retail platform assets include customer earn accounts and coin balances, retail and institutional lending portfolio, swap services, staking platform, CelPay (the debtors’ cryptocurrency payment and transfer feature), and CelsiusX (the debtors’ decentralized finance arm that utilizes wrapped cryptocurrency tokens to bridge centralized finance infrastructure to decentralized finance opportunities, and any cryptocurrencies or digital assets held by the debtors.

The initial bid deadline for the retail platform assets is Nov. 21. For all assets, including the retail platform assets, the final bid deadline is Dec. 12. An auction will be held on Dec. 15, if needed, and a sale hearing will take place on Dec. 22.

KERP denied

Also, the company’s motion seeking approval of an up to $2.96 million key employee retention plan for 62 non-insider employees was rejected by the court.

As previously reported, Region 2 U.S. trustee William K. Harrington had filed an objection to the motion.

“It defies logic, not to mention the bankruptcy code, that a company where the majority of its functions are no longer providing services, would now propose a multi-million dollar bonus scheme,” Harrington said in his objection.

The U.S. trustee said the motion fails to identify any factual information that would allow for approval, including no information provided to determine whether any of the participants are insiders.

He added that the bonuses are not tied to any identifiable metric that would enable parties-in-interest and the court to determine whether the bonus payments are reasonable.

The Hoboken, N.J.-based cryptocurrency lending platform filed bankruptcy on July 13 under Chapter 11 case number 22-10964.

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