Cryptocurrency exchange Binance filed a lawsuit in new Jersey against Forbes Media and two of its journalists: Michael del Castillo and Jason Brett. The exchange claims that they published a defamatory article, and expects to recover compensation from them.
The article was published on October 29. It referred to the exchange's alleged plan to "intentionally mislead" regulators in the United States by creating an entity that would attract penalties, while Binance would serve American investors. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao then said that the facts given in the publication do not correspond to reality.
"The publication contains numerous false, misleading and defamatory statements regarding Binance," Cointelegraph quotes an excerpt from the lawsuit. The exchange insists that it did not create the document described in the article and did not use the plan contained in it. In addition, according to her, the alleged author of the document, Harry Zhou, never worked for the company.
Binance reports that it sent a request to the publication to remove the material and apologize, but this was not done. As noted by Cointelegraph, defending such claims requires significant efforts of lawyers. They usually need to prove that the defendant committed a "brazen disregard for the truth" or was motivated by malicious motives, knowing that the information he was spreading was not true. In addition, it is necessary to prove "material damage", which, according to Binance, is measured in "millions of dollars".