Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, this week filed a suit in Hong Kong against the local publisher of Bloomberg Businessweek over a June article that his lawyers claim “contained false, malicious and defamatory statements about Zhao and his company”.
The Binance founder, known as CZ by the crypto community, filed the defamation lawsuit against Modern Media Company Limited on Monday.
At the same time, Zhao applied to take discovery from Bloomberg news service in New York to support the litigation in Hong Kong.
The Binance CEO was interviewed in March and May for the original English-language article in Businessweek, which was published on 23 June under the title ‘Can Crypto’s Richest Man Stand the Cold?’
The article described Cayman Islands-domiciled Binance as “a shitcoin casino”.
In the suit, Zhao’s lawyers noted that the article claimed money laundering, fraud, and hacking had been part of the industry’s history. The article stated “even the most respectable crypto projects can seem, to the non-laser-eyed, lightly dusted with sketch” adding that “at Binance the sketchiness has a certain completeness to it.”
Zhao’s case sets out that the accusations were unsubstantiated and “clearly meant to suggest to readers that Binance (and the rest of the cryptocurrency industry at large) was involved in illegal and sketchy activities, such as money laundering, fraud, and hacking”, according to the discovery application published by Offshore Alert.
The Hong Kong litigation, which seeks a retraction and damages, is directed at the Chinese language translation of the original article published on 6 July.
It claims that the Chinese-version headline of the article alleges fraud.
“No evidence was put forth to even remotely substantiate the allegation,” the court filing said. The defamation claim extends to the publication of the cover both online and in print and its use for promotion on social media.
Zhao demanded that the publication be retracted and social media posts taken down.
Lawyers for the Chinese publisher responded that, without admission of wrongdoing, Modern Media had taken steps to delete the social media posts and recalled the physical publication of the translated article within Hong Kong.
However, the 250th issue of the Chinese edition of Bloomberg Businessweek was still on sale on various online websites, albeit with a new title, which translated to ‘The Mysterious Zhao Changpeng’, the discovery application stated.
It added that Zhao filed the defamation claim after Modern Media failed to take further requested remedial action, such as retracting the story, publishing a full and proportionately prominent apology, and withdrawing the allegations made against Binance and Zhao.
Binance has previously sued Forbes for defamation related to an article the business magazine published in October 2020 based on internal documents of the crypto exchange, but withdrew the case three months after filing it.
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