Justin Sun’s $263,821.20 sanctions bid turns WLFI’s UAE reveal into a legal chess match

Tron founder Justin Sun is seeking $263,821.20 in sanctions against the Trump family-linked World Liberty Financial and its lawyers, alleging that the company made a misleading court disclosure about UAE ownership links before using the information to challenge federal jurisdiction. Sun and two co-plaintiffs said World Liberty initially listed Florida as its sole citizenship before amending the disclosure nearly three months later to identify 22 individuals and entities in its ownership chain, including parties connected to the United Arab Emirates.

Sun, who said he is one of World Liberty’s earliest and largest investors, agreed in November 2024 to buy $30 million of WLFI tokens and later raised his total investment to $45 million. He sued the company in April, alleging fraud and the unlawful freezing of his tokens. World Liberty responded with a defamation lawsuit in May, alleging false statements and violations of token-sale terms; Sun denied the allegations. World Liberty has also alleged that Sun shorted WLFI and drove down its price.

The amended disclosure came six days after a federal judge questioned World Liberty’s bid to move Sun’s claims into arbitration. In an Aug. 26 email included in the court exhibits, World Liberty lawyer Sam Cleveland said his team had “recently” learned of additional citizenship information and maintained that the company already had UAE citizenship when Sun filed the April lawsuit. The company’s lawyers subsequently argued that the UAE connection deprived the federal court of jurisdiction because foreign parties were on both sides of the dispute.

“World Liberty presumably always knew who its owners were,” Sun said. “When we asked how this happened, World Liberty refused to tell us.” According to attorney Edward Moss’s sworn declaration, the sanctions request covers fees for four attorneys’ work opposing arbitration and excludes other lawyers’ fees and costs related to jurisdictional discovery and the sanctions motion. A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 10, after which Sun said he plans to refile his lawsuit in California state court.

The dispute followed a January 2025 agreement by an Abu Dhabi-backed investment vehicle to purchase a 49% stake in World Liberty for $500 million. Sun has also backed the Trump family’s crypto ventures by buying President Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin, topping the token’s leaderboard for a May 2025 dinner with Trump with holdings valued at about $18.5 million. “I will keep fighting for the transparency this community deserves,” Sun wrote, as he contrasted World Liberty’s ownership position with excerpts from its “gold paper” describing the company as “an American, tax-paying, corporation.”