Federal Court Dismisses Anti-Terrorism Lawsuit Against Binance, Exchange Wins Second ATA Case in a Week

A federal court in Alabama has thrown out all claims against Binance in a lawsuit brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act, the second time in seven days a U.S. court has reached the same conclusion. The back-to-back dismissals mark a significant legal reprieve for the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which has spent years navigating regulatory and legal pressure across multiple jurisdictions.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Chad W. Bryan issued a 19-page ruling in the Northern District of Alabama dismissing every count in the complaint. The judge described the filing as a “shotgun pleading,” a legal term for a complaint that fails to clearly identify specific claims or distinguish between the conduct of individual defendants. Beyond the structural problems with the filing, the court found that plaintiffs failed to satisfy basic federal pleading standards on substance as well, providing neither a concise statement of their claims nor evidence that Binance’s conduct directly aided specific terrorist attacks. Plaintiffs have until April 10, 2026, to file an amended complaint that addresses the deficiencies the court identified.

The New York Ruling That Came First

The Alabama decision did not arrive in isolation. On March 6, a federal court in the Southern District of New York dismissed a separate ATA lawsuit involving 535 plaintiffs who alleged Binance provided material support for 64 terrorist attacks. The findings in New York closely mirrored what Judge Bryan concluded in Alabama: plaintiffs had not substantiated the core allegation that the exchange assisted, participated in, or conspired with terrorist organizations. Two courts, two jurisdictions, one week, and the same outcome.

The parallel rulings are notable not only for their timing but for their consistency. Both judges arrived at the conclusion independently, which limits the argument that either dismissal was a procedural anomaly or a product of local legal culture. The substantive finding, that the pleadings did not establish a credible causal link between Binance’s operations and specific acts of terrorism, was shared across both cases.

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What Binance’s Legal Team Is Saying

Binance General Counsel Eleanor Hughes called the dismissals a complete vindication, stating that courts have unambiguously rejected the narrative that the exchange assisted terrorists. The language is deliberately strong, and the back-to-back outcomes give Hughes reasonable ground to use it. Losing one ATA case on procedural grounds can be characterized as a plaintiff’s drafting failure. Losing two in the same week, in different federal districts, on overlapping substantive findings, is harder to dismiss as coincidence.

What Happens Next

The Alabama case is not fully resolved. Plaintiffs retain the right to amend and refile by April 10, and whether they do so with a more carefully constructed complaint will determine whether the legal exposure resurfaces. The New York case status following its March 6 dismissal has not been updated publicly with a similar amendment window, though refiling there also remains a possibility depending on the terms of that ruling.

For Binance, the immediate pressure from these two cases has lifted. The broader legal environment around the exchange remains complex, with its 2023 settlement with U.S. regulators over anti-money laundering violations still defining how the company is perceived in Washington. The ATA dismissals do not erase that history, but they do close off one specific line of attack that plaintiffs had pursued aggressively across multiple courts.

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