Binance moved to dismiss most of the claims in a UK case regarding its delisting of Bitcoin SV (BSV), Reuters reported on June 5.
The case also names the companies behind Kraken, Shapeshift, and Bittylicious as defendants. BitMEX Research reported that six companies related to the four exchanges appeared with legal teams before the tribunal today.
Binance asked the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal during a hearing to dismiss the part of the case claiming that BSV had the potential to become a major crypto.
Binance lawyer Brian Kennelly said that investors who held BSV during the delisting did so voluntarily and could have exchanged it for another asset.
Binance and other companies do not oppose certification of the case under the UK’s collective proceedings regime, which will bring the case to trial.
Billions at stake
Binance’s attempted dismissal concerns most of the value sought by plaintiff BSV Claims Ltd — 9 billion of 10 billion GBP, or $11.5 billion of $12.8 billion.
The plaintiff’s original statement alleges that exchanges deliberately colluded to damage BSV’s prospects and delist the asset, including by communicating publicly on Twitter, now X.
The exchanges’ actions supposedly caused the value of BSV to drop and gave investors no meaningful opportunity to withdraw. Forced conversions allegedly caused further losses to investors.
Exchange actions allegedly violated the UK’s Competition Act of 1998.
The case represents 240,000 UK investors.
Reasons for delisting
Each company delisted BSV in April 2019 amidst Bitcoin SV leader Craig Wright, who claims to be pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, began to initiate lawsuits over his claimed identity
Binance only provided general reasons for delisting BSV at the time. However, one day before the delisting announcement, Binance’s former CEO Changpeng Zhao contested Wright’s claims.
Shapeshift and Bittylicious followed suit by delisting BSV. Both companies cited Binance or Zhao’s influence in tweets.
Kraken said that threats and legal from the BSV team motivated the delisting. It cited the support of 70,000 users in a poll that is incidentally mentioned as evidence of collusion in the current case.
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