Voyager fraud claims crash as Second Circuit backs Metropolitan Commercial Bank
Voyager operated a cryptocurrency brokerage platform until it filed for bankruptcy in July 2022. The administrator brought the action as assignee of claims from 31,867 former customers. At the center of the dispute was a for-the-benefit-of account agreement between Voyager and MCB governing their banking relationship.
The fraud claims turned on whether MCB had actual knowledge of Voyager’s alleged misconduct. The administrator pointed to the bank’s close contact with Voyager, its involvement in Voyager’s money transmitter license efforts, an internal email where an MCB executive flagged draft language about FDIC insurance as potentially “misleading,” and emails in which MCB’s CEO observed that Voyager’s “lending strategy [was] under pressure.”
None of it got there. The FDIC email concerned draft language for a future debit cardholder agreement – not a public statement Voyager had already made. The internal emails, the court said, showed MCB recognized business risk – not that it knew Voyager was lying about its platform being safe.
The administrator also pushed for a relaxed pleading standard sometimes available to bankruptcy trustees who lack direct access to the facts. The court rejected that too, noting the administrator had authority under the bankruptcy plan to examine witnesses, access to Voyager’s internal documents, and access to the 31,867 former customers themselves. He acknowledged he could have followed up but called it “inefficient.”
That did not persuade the panel.
