Activity

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Justin Sun has hired Baker & Hostetler lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén to represent him in his lawsuit against Bloomberg. Goody Guillén has previously represented the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial, and she has lobbied for a presidential pardon for Binance’s Changpeng Zhao.

From an August issue of my newsletter:

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is still hard at work trying to secure a pardon for his 2023 money laundering conviction [I79, 83]. Zhao has personally spent $30,000 in the last few months on lobbying the president for “executive relief”, hiring BakerHostetler partner Teresa Goody Guillén (a former SEC lawyer from 2009–2011).31 Since March 24, Binance has also spent another $190,000 on Goody Guillén’s and other BakerHostetler lobbyists’ services to lobby Congress, the SEC, and the CFTC on “financial services policy issues relating to digital assets and cryptocurrency”.32 Goody Guillén simultaneously represents the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial project; she wrote the brief May retort from the company in response to Senator Blumenthal’s questions about Trump’s conflicts of interest [I83, 84].33
Posted:

Bloomberg has responded to Justin Sun’s renewed motion for a temporary restraining order.

“This is a case involving a crypto billionaire who is upset because a news report said he had more of a certain cryptocurrency than he wanted the public to know — based on information that his own representatives provided on the record.”

preliminary injunction hearing in the ordinary course. There are several reasons apparent on the face of the Motion that show Plaintiff cannot possibly prevail on his Motion. First, the injunctive relief Plaintiff seeks is a clear prior restraint prohibited by the First Amendment. Temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions are almost never granted against journalists for what they have published or may publish; such prior restraints are permitted only in truly “exceptional cases,” such as where the speech at issue would reveal the movements of troop ships in war time. Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 716 (1931).2 But this is a case involving a crypto billionaire who is upset because a news report said he had more of a certain cryptocurrency than he wanted the public to know – based on information that his own representatives provided on the record. There is no colorable argument that a prior restraint could be supported here. 

Letter

Posted:

Crypto billionaire Justin Sun’s renewed motion for a temporary restraining order in his lawsuit against Bloomberg seems to confirm my view that the lawsuit was sparked by the disclosure that he controls 63% of the supply of TRX.

1. Requiring Defendants, preliminarily until the hearing, and thereafter indefinitely, to remove the amounts of any specific cryptocurrency owned by Mr. Sun from any of its online publications; 2. Requiring Defendants, preliminarily until the hearing, and thereafter indefinitely, to retract its claim that Mr. Sun owns 60 billion Tronix and controls the majority of its supply; and 3. Enjoining Defendants, preliminarily until the hearing, and thereafter indefinitely, Defendants from publishing the amounts of any specific cryptocurrency owned by Mr. Sun in any future publication.

Sun and Bloomberg had been “engaged in discussions that may moot the emergency relief”, but it sounds like Sun wanted more than they were willing to agree to.