Lawsuit Filed: Wall Street Journal Faces Defamation Allegations Over Tether-Bitfinex Article The Wall Street Journal is facing a defamation lawsuit over an article that allegedly falsely accused a Thai-based aviation fuel broker and his company of involvement in illegal activities at
stablecoin issuer Tether and crypto exchange
Bitfinex. Christopher Harborne, the owner of
AML Global Ltd., filed the lawsuit in a Delaware state court on February 28, claiming that the article made baseless accusations of fraud, money laundering, and
financing terrorism. The contentious article, titled “Crypto Companies Behind Tether Used Falsified Documents and Shell Companies to Get
Bank Accounts,” was published in March 2023.
It reported on Tether and
Bitfinex’s struggles with maintaining access to the global banking system and suggested that they resorted to using shadowy intermediaries, falsified documents, and shell companies to regain access.
The Wall Street Journal claimed that some of these accounts were involved in
illegal activities. However, on
February 21, 2024, a week before the lawsuit was filed, an editor’s note was added, stating that the section about Harborne and
AML had been removed to avoid implying their involvement in misleading banks or the withholding or falsification of information during the account
application process.
