Crypto exchange giant Binance is launching a legal battle against the Wall Street Journal.
Binance has filed a defamation complaint against Dow Jones & Company, the newspaper’s publisher, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The lawsuit focuses on alleged false and defamatory statements in a WSJ article from last month.
The article alleged that Binance fired compliance staff for flagging $1 billion in transactions linked to sanctioned Iranian entities and that an internal investigation was dismantled without action.
Binance says the claims are untrue, investigations are ongoing and suspicious accounts have been locked out and reported to authorities.
According to the exchange, the staff departures were due to violations of data protection and confidentiality policies, and not retaliation.
Binance says it made factual corrections before publication, but the paper ignored them and rushed the story, causing significant reputational damage and sparking government and congressional investigations that wasted time and resources.
Says Binance Global Head of Litigation Dugan Bliss:
“We view this lawsuit as a necessary step to defend ourselves against disinformation, to hold The Wall Street Journal accountable for prioritizing clicks over journalistic integrity, and to address the significant reputational and business consequences that have resulted.”
A spokesperson for the Wall Street Journal says the news company stands by its reporting.
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