Explained: Inside the $39m cancer charity battle

Binance’s donation to the Malta Community Chest Fund included a clause potentially granting it access to cancer patients’ medical treatment progress reports, court documents obtained by Times of Malta have confirmed.

The MCCFF, which is chaired by the President of the Republic, pushed back against the enforcement of this clause, arguing that the donations should be administered by the fund, which would then help patients directly itself.

A legal battle came to a head this week when the MCCF foundation said it was turning down the “bogus donation” from the Binance foundation now worth a whopping $39 million in cryptocurrency.

The issue dates back to 2018, when at the height of Malta’s push to become a blockchain island, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, pledged some $200,000 (approximately €172,000) worth of its crypto coin, BNB, to cancer patients.

The disagreement centres on Binance’s insistence that the funds be transferred directly to patients’ crypto wallets, bypassing the MCCF’s usual disbursement process.

Tensions over the payment plan for the donations began to brew over six years ago, when Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, who helped secure the donation pledge, was stepping down from the presidency. 

E-mail correspondence shows how Mark Mizzi, the community chest fund’s finance director, chased a top aide to Coleiro Preca for details about how and when the promised donation from Binance would be finalised. 

The April 2019 correspondence coincides with the time Coleiro Preca’s term was coming to an end.

Coleiro Preca oversaw the signing of the donation agreement between MCCFF and the Binance foundation in 2018, when the cryptocurrency being donated was worth a small fraction of its current value. 

“We had a call with Binance and I forwarded the MCCFF bank details to them. They are to start the process for the transfer of funds,” Coleiro Preca’s aide assured Mizzi. 

By the time of the e-mail, the aide in question, Carmel Briffa, had gone from being Coleiro Preca’s private secretary during her presidency to director general of her new charity office. 

Throughout April 2019, MCCFF’s finance director continued to push Coleiro Preca’s aide for concrete timelines and details about the donation. 

“As you are well aware it is always a lengthy process when dealing with the Chinese and it was not an easy task to come to this successful project of collecting approx. .5 of a million [the value of the donation back then],” Briffa said in one update. 

Matters escalated soon after, when an official from then-President George Vella’s office intervened, demanding that Briffa hand over the contact details of the Binance foundation official he was communicating with about the donation. 

In a one-line reply three days later, Briffa told President Vella’s office to “contact the chair of the senior advisory of this charity, i.e the President Emeritus Marie Louise Coleiro Preca.” 

Coleiro Preca did not respond to a request for comment.

She has previously said she was never invited to attend any meetings of the advisory board, nor was she aware of any meetings being held.

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao at a Malta Community Chest Fund event in October 2018. Photo: Facebook/Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca

‘You never requested any amount’ 

The next tranche of correspondence presented to court fast forwards to May 2020, over a year later. 

In a legal letter to the foundation, the MCCFF’s lawyers complained that the charity had made “numerous attempts” to facilitate the transfer of donations from Binance to suffering individuals in dire need of help, to no avail. 

Further exchanges a few months later show the Binance foundation’s deputy director asked the MCCFF for information about the intended beneficiaries of the donation. 

MCCFF replies with a “donation plan”, in which it tells Binance that as the beneficiary, it will use the funds to pay for cancer medication.  

A week after receiving the donation plan, Binance appeared to abruptly inform the community chest fund it will be terminating the donation agreement “since you have never requested any amount” in accordance with the terms of a specific clause in the agreement. 

The clause in question says the MCCFF shall, from time to time, request Binance to consider granting beneficiaries charitable donations.

According to the same clause, Binance had total discretion as to whether to hand out the requested donation or not. 

“Therefore, we would like to terminate this agreement due to your omission of this agreement,” the Binance foundation’s letter said. 

This immediately led to accusations by the MCCF lawyers that the Binance foundation was making every attempt possible to try avoiding its obligations under the agreement. 

The lawyers argued that in just over a week, Binance had gone from saying it wished to transfer funds to the MCCFF to completely reversing its position in an attempt to avoid paying the donation.

An aide to ex-president Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca awaiting updates from ‘the Chinese’ about the donation.

‘Unfettered discretion’ 

In a bid to safeguard the promised funds, the MCCFF requested a court injunction to prevent Binance from liquidating the Malta-based foundation and transferring its assets to the United States. 

Binance defended its position in court, arguing that the 2018 agreement granted it “unfettered discretion” over whether to accept a donation plan sent to its by the MCCFF.  For this reason, the foundation said it is completely “untrue” that the MCCFF has an automatic right to the funds. 

The foundation argued that if anyone has a right to the funds, it is the cancer patients, and the only right the MCCFF has is to ask Binance for a donation on behalf of the beneficiaries, who in accordance with the agreement, must always be identified. 

Apart from these initial legal salvos in 2021, very little progress was registered in the case over the next few years. 

In January 2024, the community chest fund and the foundation told the court they were attempting to reach an out of court settlement. 

A subsequent nine court sessions between March 2024 and June 2025 were postponed in the hope of reaching a settlement. 

The community chest fund only dropped the case last week, sparking disagreement from some quarters about how it was walking away from a donation now worth over $30 million. 

Prime Minister Robert Abela was among those critical voices, urging the community chest fund to reconsider its decision. 

President Miriam Spiteri Debono has so far stuck to her guns, dismissing Binance’s donation pledge as “bogus.” 

On its part, Binance has said it will ensure these funds are spent in Malta.

President George Vella’s office demanding to be put in direct contact with the Binance foundation.