Tron founder Justin Sun is seeking sanctions against Trump-linked World Liberty Financial and its lawyers, accusing the crypto venture of concealing its ties to the United Arab Emirates until months into his lawsuit over frozen WLFI tokens.
Sun, who sued World Liberty in April, said the company initially told a California federal court that it was a citizen of Florida in an X post on Tuesday. Months later, after a judge ruled that some of his claims could remain in public court rather than go to private arbitration, World Liberty amended its disclosure to include the UAE.
The new disclosure could prevent Sun's lawsuit from proceeding in federal court.
Sun was among World Liberty's earliest and largest investors, agreeing to purchase $30 million worth of WLFI tokens in November 2024 before raising his total investment to $45 million. The investment made Sun a major backer of the decentralized finance project, which has close ties to President Donald Trump and his family.
But the relationship soured with Sun alleging that the company had induced his investment through fraud and then unlawfully frozen his tokens, preventing him from accessing assets he had purchased.
World Liberty Financial previously defended its decision to freeze Sun's tokens. The company could not be reached for comment on the latest allegations.
Sun alleges World Liberty sought to move the dispute into private arbitration in April, but he opposed the request. The court ruled at an August hearing that some claims should remain in public court while others should go to arbitration.
Less than a week later, World Liberty revised its corporate disclosure. Instead of listing only itself as a Florida citizen, the company identified 22 entities in its ownership chain and claimed citizenship in Florida, Delaware, Puerto Rico and the UAE, Sun said.
That matters because federal courts generally cannot hear this type of case when foreign citizens are on both sides. World Liberty is now arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction.
Sun claims the company should have disclosed its foreign ownership from the outset, before his lawyers spent months and hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting its arbitration request.
"World Liberty was proudly American when it was selling tokens," Sun wrote on X. "It discovered its UAE roots only when it needed a way out of an American federal courtroom."
World Liberty's lawyers have said they learned of the UAE citizenship after filing the original disclosure, according to Sun.
Sun is asking the court to hold the company and its lawyers accountable for what he calls a misleading filing. He said he plans to refile his lawsuit in California state court once the sanctions motion is resolved.
The allegations remain disputed, and the court has not determined that World Liberty intentionally concealed its ownership.