US Court of Appeals Reopens Case Against Binance.US for Illegal Manipulation of HEX Token Price

BlockBeats news, on August 13, Cointelegraph reported that the U.S. Court of Appeals partially overturned the dismissal of the class action lawsuit filed against Binance.US, which accused the trading platform of illegally manipulating the price of HEX tokens. A panel of three judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court's previous decision to dismiss the class action lawsuit, saying that the plaintiff Ryan Cox's claims against Binance.US and CoinMarketCap were reasonable.

Cox first filed a class action lawsuit in 2021, accusing Binance Capital Management and Binance.US of artificially limiting HEX's ranking on CoinMarketCap, Binance's cryptocurrency price tracking platform. Cox claimed that this resulted in HEX trading at a lower price and a higher ranking of Binance's own cryptocurrency. A district court judge first dismissed the lawsuit in February 2023, finding that Cox failed to establish any specific connection between specific activities in Arizona and Binance.US that could link Binance.US to the manipulation of HEX.

In an opinion dated August 12, the judges disagreed with the district court’s initial conclusion that Cox had to prove a “sufficient minimum connection” between Binance.US and Arizona, the state where Cox initially filed the lawsuit, for the court to establish personal jurisdiction. The panel concluded that the district court had personal jurisdiction over the U.S. defendants in the lawsuit because of their broader ties to the United States. In addition, the appeals court found that Cox’s lawsuit made reasonable allegations of price manipulation against Binance.US and noted that they had been remanded for retrial. HEX was reportedly launched in December 2019 by its founder Richard Heart.