- Justin Sun says a federal judge kept his personal claims against World Liberty Financial in open court and rejected the company’s push for private arbitration.
- World Liberty co-founder Zach Witkoff says the judge issued no order at all and calls Sun’s account false.
- No order confirming either side’s version was visible on the public docket as of this report.
World Liberty Financial is disputing Justin Sun’s account of last week’s court hearing. The company’s co-founder says the judge issued no ruling at all, even as Sun told his followers he had won. Sun posted on X on August 21 that Judge James Donato, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled that his individual claims against World Liberty would stay in open court. He said the judge also rejected the company’s bid to move the case into private, sealed arbitration.
Today, my counsel appeared in California federal court to oppose World Liberty Financial’s @worldlibertyfi efforts to force our dispute into secret arbitration proceedings and seal documents from public view.
We argued forcefully that this case belongs in open court—and the…
— H.E. Justin Sun 👨🚀 🌞 (@justinsuntron) August 20, 2026
Zach Witkoff, World Liberty’s co-founder, called Sun’s post “riddled with falsehoods.” He said the August 20 hearing produced no order at all. He said it was Sun’s own lawyers who agreed several claims brought by his companies should go to arbitration, not the judge siding with Sun. Neither account could be checked against the public docket for the case, Sun et al. v. World Liberty Financial LLC, number 3:26-cv-03360-JD, as of this report. The two sides’ public dispute was first reported the day after the hearing, when both camps’ early statements were still being sorted out.
Sun’s X post regarding today’s hearing on World Liberty’s Motion to Compel Arbitration is riddled with falsehoods. The Court did not make any rulings but agreed with World Liberty that many claims brought by Sun’s companies must go to arbitration, and even Sun’s lawyers had to concede in the courtroom that these claims do not belong in court.
The Freeze Fight Behind the Hearing
The hearing is part of a lawsuit Sun filed on April 21. He alleges fraud, breach of contract, and conversion. He says he invested $45 million for 3 billion $WLFI tokens between November 2024 and January 2025, making him one of the project’s earliest and largest backers. According to Sun’s complaint, World Liberty quietly added a blacklisting function to the token’s smart contract before the tokens became tradable in September 2025, then used it to freeze his wallet. The complaint says World Liberty briefly unlocked a portion of his tokens before blacklisting the wallet again days later.
The complaint also alleges World Liberty gave itself the power to reallocate any user’s tokens in November 2025. It alleges the company proposed burning 100 million of Sun’s tokens in April, days after saying publicly it had no intention of settling with him. World Liberty answered with a case of its own. In May, the company filed a defamation lawsuit against Sun in Florida, alleging his public statements were false and that he had breached the terms of the WLFI token sale.
If Sun’s account of the hearing holds, the parties must next agree on which claims brought by his companies, as opposed to his personal claims, belong in arbitration. If Witkoff’s account holds, that question was already decided in World Liberty’s favor. Which version is accurate should become clear once the court’s written record catches up with what each side is telling the public.
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