Changpeng Zhao and Binance are not happy about their media representation in Bloomberg's article.
Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Binance also known as “CZ”, has sued Bloomberg Businessweek Hong Kong’s edition for three defamation claims.
On July 25, the High Court of Hong Kong received Changpeng Zhao's defamation filing for Modern Media Company Limited, which is an official publisher of Bloomberg’s content in China.
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According to the filing, the translation of the original article called “Can Crypto’s Richest Man Stand the Cold?” was the main problem. In the Chinese version, the article was called “Zhao Changpeng’s Ponzi Scheme”.
In a nutshell, a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment strategy when the company pays existing investors “with the funds collected from new investors”.
According to the court filing, the use of such wording in the title of the article was sought to create “hatred, contempt, and ridicule”.
In the filing, Zhao also sued the company for using the same reference to advertise the article through social media platforms, in particular Facebook and Twitter. Nevertheless, the print form of this article has been distributed around Hong Kong on July 7th.
Zhao is asking for Modern Media Company Limited to take all printed newspapers out of the shops, and issue a “restraining order” to stop the company from the further deployment of such phrasing.
Binance's CEO also seeks to make the company retrieve all of its defamatory statements, provide a public apology, and the financial compensation for damaging his public image.
However, Changpeng Zhao didn’t stop by suing only the Chinese version of the article. The U.S. The District Court for the Southern District of New York has received a motion for discovery against Bloomberg.
The filing states:
Surpringly, the Original Article contained several serious and defamatory allegations made against Zhao and Binance that were completely unsubstantiated, and were obviously designed to mislead readers into believing that Zhao and Binance have been engaging in illegal or unsavory activities.
This is not the first time Zhao and Binance have been involved in suing a public media outlet. Back in 2020, sued Forbes over allegedly defamation claims, however, dropped it in 2021. On top of that, in 2019 Zhao also sued Sequoia for definition claims.
