Sun’s $263,821.20 Sanctions Bid Turns WLFI’s Citizenship Into a Federal Case

Tron founder Justin Sun is seeking $263,821.20 in sanctions against World Liberty Financial and its lawyers over an ownership disclosure that added the United Arab Emirates to the Trump family-linked company’s citizenship chain after Sun sued in April. Sun and two co-plaintiffs alleged in a federal court filing that World Liberty initially listed Florida as its sole citizenship before amending the disclosure nearly three months later to identify 22 members of its ownership chain, including people and entities with UAE citizenship.

World Liberty subsequently argued that its UAE citizenship deprived the federal court of jurisdiction because foreign parties were on both sides of the lawsuit. The amended disclosure came six days after a federal judge questioned World Liberty’s request to send Sun’s claims to 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 while maintaining that World Liberty already had UAE citizenship when Sun filed the lawsuit in April.

Sun wrote on X that World Liberty “presumably always knew who its owners were” and “refused to tell us” how the UAE connection was omitted from the original disclosure. 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 follows Sun’s November 2024 agreement to invest $30 million in World Liberty’s WLFI tokens, which he later increased to $45 million. Sun sued World Liberty in April, alleging fraud and the unlawful freezing of his tokens; World Liberty filed a defamation lawsuit against him in May, alleging false statements and violations of token-sale terms. Sun denied those allegations. The legal conflict followed a January 2025 agreement for an Abu Dhabi-backed investment vehicle to purchase a 49% stake in World Liberty for $500 million.

Sun also bought President Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin and topped the token’s leaderboard for a May 2025 dinner with Trump with holdings valued at about $18.5 million. Amid the public feud, WLFI fell to just under $0.08, down 20%. Sun has accused World Liberty of threatening to burn his WLFI tokens and said, “I will keep fighting for the transparency this community deserves,” while contrasting the company’s jurisdiction argument with its “gold paper” description of itself as “an American, tax-paying, corporation.”