Justin Sun Keeps the Court Fight Public Ahead of the OCC's Final Ruling on World Liberty

Justin Sun claims to have won a first round against World Liberty Financial. On August 20, a federal judge in California reportedly refused to send all of his claims to private arbitration. This decision comes just days after the conditional green light granted by the OCC to World Liberty Trust Company, which is set to resume issuing the USD1 stablecoin.

Justin Sun obtains the maintenance of part of the case before the court

The standoff between Justin Sun and World Liberty Financial has been going on for several months. The founder of Tron, who bought $45 million worth of WLFI tokens, brought the case before a federal court in San Francisco in April.

This dispute between WLFI and Justin Sun notably concerns the freezing of his tokens and the control powers that World Liberty would have integrated into the WLFI contract.

On June 2, World Liberty Financial asked Judge James Donato to force the plaintiffs to go through arbitration and to suspend the judicial procedure. The hearing on this request took place on August 20.

At its outcome, Sun stated that his personal claims would remain publicly reviewed before the federal court. In other words, World Liberty did not get the transfer of the entire dispute to a private procedure.

This distinction matters. Indeed, arbitration generally allows settling a conflict outside of public hearings and with much more limited visibility on exchanged documents.

However, nothing has yet been decided on the merits. Blue Anthem Limited and Black Anthem Limited, two companies also parties to the complaint, have their own claims. Their treatment remains under discussion. Importantly, the written order from the judge was not yet publicly available at the time of writing this article.

World Liberty prepares in parallel its bank for USD1

The timeline adds another dimension to the case. On August 14, six days before the hearing, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted a preliminary conditional approval to World Liberty Trust Company.

The future national trust bank is to take charge of issuing and redeeming USD1, as well as managing its reserves. It plans to take over these activities from BitGo, which currently serves this role.

But World Liberty Trust cannot start its operations yet. Final authorization depends on meeting several conditions imposed by the OCC.

The bank must notably have at least $20 million in Tier 1 capital. It must also maintain sufficient liquid assets to cover 180 days of operational expenses and notify the regulator before any significant changes to its business model.

The OCC also retains the possibility to modify, suspend, or withdraw its preliminary approval before the official opening of the institution.

Another element in the document deserves attention: World Liberty Trust will neither be able to issue, hold, nor trade WLFI tokens. However, the OCC specifies that World Liberty Financial and the future bank indirectly share some owners.

On paper, a clear boundary is thus drawn between the WLFI token and the banking activities related to USD1.

Previous token freezes fuel questions

This separation comes as the control powers exercised over certain assets linked to World Liberty are already at the heart of several conflicts.

In June, World Liberty Financial froze some on-chain addresses associated with HTX as part of a sanctions compliance review. The crypto platform challenged this decision and suspended several pairs involving WLFI and USD1. It also announced the conversion of its users’ USD1 holdings into USDT.

A few months earlier, in September 2025, Justin Sun himself saw a significant portion of his WLFI tokens blocked after movements to exchange platforms. This episode notably led to the current dispute.

The legal battle is not limited to California. World Liberty also sued Justin Sun for defamation and market manipulation in a separate proceeding.

For now, none of these proceedings have concluded on the merits of the accusations.

The next steps should bring more clarity. On one side, Judge Donato’s written order will specify which claims will remain before the court and which might still be subject to arbitration. On the other, World Liberty Trust must meet the OCC’s requirements before obtaining its final authorization.

Two separate cases, but the same underlying question: how far does the control exercised within the World Liberty ecosystem extend, as USD1 is about to enter a federally regulated banking framework reinforced by the American legislation on stablecoins?