Summarizing the Denial of Celsius' Key Employee Retention Program Motion

For a review of key employee retention plans (KERP), please refer to The Block Research's analysis of Voyager Digital's KERP approval. 

Celsius' ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings took a turn on Tuesday, November 2nd, when a New York judge denied their sealing Motion citing the potentially duplicitous nature of the Motion as it would prevent any parties besides the debtors (in this case, Celsius) from seeing what the requests are. Furthermore, the Motion cited that the unredacted papers provide little to no insight for both the Court and adjacent 3rd parties to evaluate Celsius's proposed KERP. Due to the lack of information, the KERP Motion was denied without prejudice as KERP approval is subject to high hurdles and must satisfy section 503(c)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code. The filing clarified that Celsius failed to distinguish between insider and non-insider parties that were to be included within the proposed KERP.