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, reports Josh Russell of Courthouse News Service.
Russell reports, “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.”
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