Binance Launches Defamation Lawsuit Against Wall Street Journal Over Iran Sanctions Claims

The crypto exchange giant Binance is launching a legal battle against the Wall Street Journal.

Binance has filed a defamation complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Dow Jones & Company, the newspaper’s publisher.

The suit targets allegedly false and defamatory statements in a WSJ article from last month.

The article claimed Binance fired compliance staff for flagging $1 billion in transactions tied to sanctioned Iran entities and dismantled an internal investigation without action.

Binance says the claims are untrue, investigations are ongoing and suspicious accounts were offboarded and reported to authorities.

According to the exchange, staff departures stemmed from data protection and confidentiality policy breaches, not retaliation.

Binance says it provided factual corrections before publication but the newspaper disregarded them and rushed the story, caused significant reputational harm and triggering government and congressional inquiries 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 misinformation, hold The Wall Street Journal accountable for prioritizing clicks over journalistic integrity, and address the significant reputational harm and business consequences that have resulted.”

A spokesperson for the Wall Street Journal says the news outlet stands by its reporting.

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