Crypto Exchange Binance Seeks to Slash Size of $13 bln UK Lawsuit

An advertisement of Bitcoin, one of the cryptocurrencies, is displayed on a building in Hong Kong, on Nov. 18, 2021. (AP)
An advertisement of Bitcoin, one of the cryptocurrencies, is displayed on a building in Hong Kong, on Nov. 18, 2021. (AP)
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Crypto Exchange Binance Seeks to Slash Size of $13 bln UK Lawsuit

An advertisement of Bitcoin, one of the cryptocurrencies, is displayed on a building in Hong Kong, on Nov. 18, 2021. (AP)
An advertisement of Bitcoin, one of the cryptocurrencies, is displayed on a building in Hong Kong, on Nov. 18, 2021. (AP)

Crypto exchange Binance on Wednesday sought to throw out the vast majority of a London lawsuit worth up to 10 billion pounds ($12.8 billion) over claims it and other exchanges colluded to "delist" the Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) cryptocurrency.

Binance and exchanges including Kraken are being sued at London's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in a case brought on behalf of over 200,000 BSV owners.

Lawyers representing BSV Claims, a vehicle set up to pursue the case, say the exchanges engaged in anti-competitive behaviour to delist BSV in 2019.

They argue the move caused the value of BSV to plummet and prevented it becoming a "top tier" cryptocurrency, valuing that part of the claim at up to 9 billion pounds, Reuters reported.

BSV Claims' lawyers said the exchanges were not opposing the case being certified under the UK's collective proceedings regime, which is roughly equivalent to the US class action regime. Such certification would be just the first step in the lawsuit.

But Binance has asked the CAT to throw out the part of the case about BSV's alleged potential to become a major cryptocurrency, which is being brought on behalf of people who kept BSV after it was delisted.

Binance's lawyer Brian Kennelly said people who kept BSV had made "an entirely voluntary decision". They "could reasonably have sold it and reinvested it in comparable cryptocurrency", Kennelly added.

BSV Claims' lawyers argued in court documents that the issue should proceed to trial with the rest of the case.

Binance declined to comment on ongoing litigation.

Binance, Kraken and other exchanges delisted BSV in 2019, partly in response to claims by Australian computer scientist Craig Wright, who was associated with BSV, that he was the pseudonymous inventor of bitcoin known as "Satoshi Nakamoto".

Earlier this year, Wright was found in separate litigation to have lied and forged documents to support his false claim to be Satoshi. Wright has said he will appeal against that ruling.



Microsoft Looks to Boost AI Performance in European Languages

FILE PHOTO: Microsoft signage is seen at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, US, January 18, 2023. REUTERS/Matt Mills McKnight/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Microsoft signage is seen at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, US, January 18, 2023. REUTERS/Matt Mills McKnight/File Photo
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Microsoft Looks to Boost AI Performance in European Languages

FILE PHOTO: Microsoft signage is seen at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, US, January 18, 2023. REUTERS/Matt Mills McKnight/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Microsoft signage is seen at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, US, January 18, 2023. REUTERS/Matt Mills McKnight/File Photo

US tech behemoth Microsoft is investing millions of dollars to funnel more European-language data into AI development, company president Brad Smith told AFP Monday.

With today's leading AI models mostly trained on material in English, "the survival of these languages and the health of these cultures is quite literally at stake" without a course correction, Smith said in an interview.

AI models are "less capable when it is in a language that has insufficient data," he added -- which could push more users to switch to English even when it is not their native language.

Microsoft will from September set up research units in the eastern French city Strasbourg to "help expand the availability of multilingual data for AI development" in at least 10 of the European Union's 24 languages, including Estonian and Greek.

The work will include digitizing books and recording hundreds of hours of audio.

"This isn't about creating data for Microsoft to own. It is about creating data for the public to be able to use," Smith said, adding that the information would be shared on an open-source basis.

The US-based company has in recent months striven to position itself as especially compatible with a gathering political push for European technological sovereignty.

Leaders in the bloc have grown increasingly nervous at their dependency on US tech firms and infrastructure since Donald Trump's reelection to the White House.

In June, Microsoft said it was stepping up cooperation with European governments on cybersecurity and announced new "data sovereignty" measures for its data centers on the continent.

Smith said that Monday's announcement was just the latest evidence of the company's commitment to Europe.

Most leading AI firms are American or Chinese, although Europe has some standouts like France's Mistral or Franco-American platform Hugging Face.

Away from Microsoft, some European initiatives such as TildeLM are pushing to develop local-language AI models.

The Windows and Office developer also said Monday that it was working on a digital recreation of Paris' Notre-Dame cathedral that it plans to gift to the French state, as well as digitizing items from the country's BNF national library and Decorative Arts Museum.