World Liberty Financial Files Defamation Suit Against Justin Sun in Florida State Court

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--World Liberty Financial today filed a defamation lawsuit against Yuchen “Justin” Sun in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Florida. The lawsuit alleges that Sun engaged in a deliberate campaign to publish false and defamatory statements about World Liberty and seeks both damages and a public retraction of the statements Sun published to his nearly four million followers on X.

The lawsuit alleges that Sun engaged in prohibited transfers, straw purchases, and short sales of $WLFI. It further alleges that Sun was fully aware of World Liberty’s right to freeze user tokens to protect its token holders and its community.

“Rather than acting in good faith, Justin Sun chose to defame World Liberty — repeatedly, publicly, and to millions of followers. World Liberty filed this lawsuit as a last resort to correct the record and to protect its token holders, its employees, and all its stakeholders. We are eager to expose the falsity of Sun’s statements in court and in public,” said Tom Clare, attorney for World Liberty Financial.

The lawsuit alleges that Sun made these statements despite his knowledge of World Liberty’s governing agreements and public disclosures. It alleges that Sun knew these statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, and that he did so in a calculated effort to harm World Liberty while potentially benefiting his own financial positions.

Details from the Complaint:

• Sun is suspected of improper transfers, conducting straw purchases, and short selling $WLFI tokens. The lawsuit alleges that Sun acquired $WLFI tokens for undisclosed individuals through straw purchases and conducted unauthorized token transfers and short sales of $WLFI tokens.
• Sun agreed to WLFI’s freezing authority. The freezing authority Sun now publicly calls a hidden “trap door” to try to smear World Liberty is spelled out in World Liberty’s Terms of Sale, in the Token Unlock Agreement that Sun signed, and on the public blockchain itself.
• Sun praised the project after learning of the same authority he later attacked. In a September 2025 post on X, Sun called $WLFI “one of the biggest and most important projects in crypto” and said he was “fully aligned with the mission.”
• Sun threatened the company before going public. As alleged in the lawsuit, through counsel, Sun told World Liberty that the litigation he was contemplating would “light World Liberty on fire.” Only after the company refused his demands did Sun take his false accusations to social media. Sun launched this public campaign after World Liberty enforced contractual restrictions related to digital tokens held by entities affiliated with him. Rather than address the misconduct alleged in the lawsuit, Sun escalated the dispute publicly by disseminating defamatory statements that damaged World Liberty’s reputation, disrupted its business, and undermined trust in its platform and community.
• Two causes of action and a demand for retraction. The complaint asserts defamation and defamation by implication and seeks compensatory, special, presumed, and other damages, together with a court-ordered retraction.

World Liberty Financial is represented by Clare Locke LLP. A copy of the Complaint is available here.