Wall Street Journal urges judge to toss Binance defamation suit

The Wall Street Journal says the world's largest cryptocurrency platform failed to show the newspaper acted with actual malice when it published three articles about Binance's termination of internal compliance investigations.MANHATTAN (CN) — The Wall Street Journal asked a federal judge Wednesday afternoon to dismiss a defamation suit over news reports that Binance covered up an internal probe that found money transferred on the platform flowed to sanctioned entities linked to Iranian-backed terror groups.The Wall Street Journal, a Dow Jones company, argues Binance’s March 2026 defamation complaint should be dismissed for failure to plead the newspaper acted with actual malice when it published three articles detailing Binance’s supposed obstruction of efforts to prevent illegal transactions, retaliation against compliance personnel, dismantling of internal investigations, weakening of cooperation with law enforcement, and knowingly permitting sanctioned Iranian entities to transact on its platform.“The crux of Binance’s complaint in this action is simple: the Journal knew its reporting was false because Binance sent the Journal self-serving denials prior to the article’s publication and again after the article was published,” the Wall Street Journal wrote in its motion to dismiss Binance’s defamation suit. “The complaint repeats this mantra over and over again. But bare repetition does not transform these inadequate allegations into a defamation claim."During oral arguments Wednesday afternoon, Wall Street Journal attorney Katherine Bolger from Davis Wright Tremaine argued Binance did not deny the central claims of the three newspaper articles.“This defamation action springs not from false facts, but from Binance’s unhappiness with the way the Journal reported truthful facts. Binance’s unhappiness with the Journal’s editorial judgments does not constitute a defamation claim, and the claim should be dismissed.”Binance argues in its opposition memo that it plausibly showed defamation-by-implication in connection with the Journal’s assertions that Binance fired the relevant investigators because they were investigating Iranian transfers.Binance attorney Christopher Norman Lavigne with the firm Withers Bergman argued Binance’s internal compliance probe was not actually dismantled as reported, and the Journal nevertheless published a sensational headline —“Binance Fired Staff Who Flagged $1 Billion Moving to Sanctioned Iran Entities”— that painted a false picture of law enforcement obstruction and deficient compliance at Binance.“Here you have an article that starts with a conclusion, ends with the conclusion, and peppered all throughout are the conclusion,” Lavigne said.Binance claims the articles made statements and implications that are false, defamatory, and reckless.U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer noted the amended complaint lists 22 distinct, “allegedly actionable statements” across the three Wall Street Journal articles.The Barack Obama appointee pressed Binance’s lawyer to explain how individual statements were factually inaccurate or how they were defamatory.In particular, Engelmayer grilled Binance why the Wall Street Journal was sued when both The New York Times and Fortune magazine also published articles on the topic of Binance firing top investigators who claimed to have uncovered evidence of Iranian sanctions violations.Lavigne responded that Wall Street Journal articles went deeper than the other two outlet’s stories, and later claimed the Wall Street Journal was tainted by bias towards Binance.The Journal says the very existence of those New York Times and Fortune articles negates a finding of actual malice.“Given this prior reporting from reputable news outlets, the Journal would have no reason to believe that its own article on this subject was false,” the newspaper wrote in a court filing.Engelmayer did not rule on the motion to dismiss from the bench, taking the matter under submission.Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to prevent money laundering at Binance, and was sentenced to four months in prison. He has since been pardoned by President Donald Trump.At the time Zhao’s pardon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed in a statement the Biden administration had prosecuted Zhao out of a “desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry.”Zhao has significant ties to Trump’s cryptocurrency platform World Liberty Financial, which was co-founded with his sons and announced weeks before the 2024 election.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads