Kirkland & Ellis charged crypto seller Voyager Digital Holdings Inc. $3 million in decrease than a month for work on the company’s closely-watched Chapter 11 chapter case.
Kirkland, the world’s largest regulation company by earnings, is representing Voyager and fellow crypto agency Celsius Group LLC in separate bankruptcies. The circumstances elevate important questions on how crypto property are handled in firm reorganizations.
Kirkland charged Voyager a retainer of $1 million on June 17 and requested $2 million further by July 1, in accordance with a courtroom docket doc filed Wednesday. The company had used merely higher than $2 million of Kirkland’s licensed suppliers by July 5, leaving them a cushion of about $870,000.
The company’s highest-priced lawyer, who was not acknowledged, is charging $1,995 an hour for work on the case, in accordance with the courtroom docket submitting. A handful of well-known attorneys in Big Regulation price higher than $2,000.
Regulation companies often request retainers in chapter circumstances and work down the fees as a result of the case progresses. Corporations ought to disclose their fees inside the chapter course of.
Voyager employed Kirkland in mid-June to alternate a earlier chapter counsel, it talked about in courtroom docket paperwork. That earlier regulation company was Akin Gump, the Wall Avenue Journal reported.
Kirkland has been the busiest regulation company in fundamental Chapter 11 circumstances over the last few years, incomes higher than $200 million in pre-petition submitting fees for such circumstances in 2020, the ultimate busy yr for chapter attorneys.
The Kirkland talked about Voyager is in discussions referring to potential M&A transactions, nonetheless didn’t title any of those occasions.
The disclosure moreover talked about some Kirkland attorneys are Voyager shoppers, noting these attorneys will not perform any work on the case.