Binance CEO, Richard Teng, has hinted that the exchange might take the matter to court after two leading newspapers reported that internal auditors had uncovered the supposedly large, scale moving of crypto funds between Binance and entities in Iran and that employees involved in the matter had been dismissed.
The articles, released on Monday by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, alleged that a sum between $1 billion and $1.7 billion worth of digital assets had been transferred from Binance accounts to networks suspected to be linked to Iran, backed groups, thus violating the global sanctions regime.
Legal Threats
In his statement, Teng said that the article had “defamatory claims” and that Binance’s lawyers had sent a letter to WSJ editor, in, chief Emma Tucker, asking for the removal of the article while waiting for correction.
The letter, which is dated Tuesday and is addressed to Emma Tucker, describes the article as “false, seriously misleading to your readers, and defamatory of our client, ” and warns that if no action is taken, Binance will be forced to resort to other forms of law enforcement.
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Background
The articles also said that four investigators were fired or suspended after raising the issue. A separate Fortune article on February 13 repeated similar accusations and said that five employees were sacked for raising sanctions issues.
They has been very vocal in rejecting these claims, calling them “categorically false” and also stating that no staff have been sacked for reporting potential sanctions violations. The company says that an internal review, done with the help of external legal counsel, did not find any evidence of breaches relating to the mentioned transactions.
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