Justin Sun said Thursday that a federal judge rejected an effort by World Liberty Financial to move all of his claims into private arbitration, marking the latest development in his legal dispute with the crypto project.
Sun said in a post on X that his individual claims will remain in open court following a hearing in California federal court. He said the judge also rejected World Liberty’s argument that all claims connected to his companies must be arbitrated.
The parties were instead ordered to meet and determine which company related claims should remain in court and which should proceed through arbitration, according to Sun.
The case, Sun et al v. World Liberty Financial LLC, was filed in April in the US District Court for the Northern District of California and is assigned to Judge James Donato.
Sun sued World Liberty after investing $45 million in the project, alleging fraud and accusing the company of using mechanisms in its smart contracts to freeze his $WLFI tokens. World Liberty has disputed Sun’s allegations and separately accused him of damaging the company through a public campaign against it.
In his Thursday post, Sun said World Liberty had sought to move the dispute behind closed doors and argued that token holders should be able to see how the project handles its investors.
Sun also repeated allegations from his complaint that World Liberty secretly embedded functionality allowing it to freeze, restrict or burn $WLFI tokens and later used those controls against his holdings.
World Liberty’s risk disclosures state that it can block or freeze wallet addresses and associated tokens when it determines they are linked to illegal activity or violations of its terms. The company has previously said Sun agreed to its freezing authority under an agreement governing his tokens.
Sun’s lawsuit seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. He previously obtained an order preventing World Liberty from permanently burning, reallocating or otherwise disposing of the tokens involved in the dispute, according to his account of the litigation.
Sun also raised concerns Thursday about World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin and the company’s financial position, though those claims remain allegations and have not been established by the court.
The broader dispute remains unresolved. World Liberty has denied wrongdoing and has separately sued Sun in Florida for defamation, accusing him of conducting a campaign to damage the company’s reputation and $WLFI token. Sun has denied those allegations.
