Nigerian Court Postpones Binance Hearing Until Late April
Date: 2025-04-09 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: BUSINESS
The Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria, has postponed the hearing of the case brought against cryptocurrency exchange Binance until April 30. This decision was made in response to a petition from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), which requested additional time to prepare a response to the company’s objection to the way court documents were served on it.
Binance’s lawyers claim that the company has no representative office in Nigeria and is registered in the Cayman Islands, and therefore believe that sending procedural papers by email, which the court allowed in February, does not comply with legal norms.
The country’s authorities accuse Binance of large-scale tax evasion, citing the exchange’s “significant economic presence” in Nigeria. The total amount of financial claims is estimated at $2 billion. In addition, the government is demanding another $79.5 billion in compensation for alleged economic damage related to the platform's activities.
Binance has also found itself at the center of accusations of destabilizing the national currency, the naira. In this regard, in 2024, Nigerian intelligence services detained two high-ranking employees of the company. One of them, Nadeem Anjarwalla, later fled to Kenya, while Tigran Gambaryan spent eight months in Kuje prison before the charges against him were dropped in the fall.
Earlier, representatives of the Nigerian government also claimed that Binance could be involved in the financing of terrorism and criminal groups, including cases of kidnapping. The platform, according to them, facilitated the transfer of funds that were used for illegal purposes.
Thus, the legal standoff between Binance and the Nigerian authorities continues, and its outcome may affect both the reputation of the cryptocurrency platform and the future policy of regulation of the crypto industry in the region.
