Investors sue Webull, alleging broker-dealer hid its China ties
Its SEC filings stated one factor – a congressional probe stated one other.
A category motion accuses Webull of hiding the true scale of its China operations from buyers.
A securities grievance filed October 8 in federal court docket in Tampa, Florida, alleges on-line broker-dealer Webull Corporation informed buyers one story about its ties to mainland China whereas the truth, in accordance with the submitting, was very completely different.
The grievance, Ward v. Webull Corporation et al. (Case No. 8:26-cv-03052), brings claims underneath federal securities legal guidelines – particularly Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act and SEC Rule 10b-5. It names Webull – a Cayman Islands-incorporated broker-dealer whose shares commerce on the Nasdaq underneath the ticker “BULL” – together with the corporate’s founder and CEO, and its CFO, as defendants.
The firm describes itself as a broker-dealer regulated in 12 main exchanges globally, with US places of work in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The case facilities on a string of SEC filings the grievance alleges painted an incomplete image. In its 2024 annual report, a July 2025 registration assertion, and its 2025 annual report, Webull informed buyers its “operations in mainland China are restricted to analysis and growth and technical help features,” in accordance with the grievance. Those filings additionally said that US buyer knowledge “can’t be transmitted exterior of the United States or accessed by our non-U.S. staff with out permission and oversight from our U.S. personnel.”
The grievance alleges these statements had been “false and/or deceptive.” In actuality, the submitting claims, “Webull’s core platform, software program growth, knowledge pipelines, and core engineering relied on PRC-based personnel and on know-how utilities topic to Chinese legislation.”
More broadly, the grievance alleges that “Webull’s possession construction, technical workforce, know-how utilities, cross-border knowledge routing, financing, and compliance construction had been structurally tied to China” – contradicting the corporate’s assurances that its primary industry operations had been US-based.
The numbers in Webull’s personal filings inform the story. The grievance factors to the corporate’s July 2025 registration assertion, which disclosed that its mainland China subsidiary, Hunan Weibu Information Technology Co., Ltd., “employs 731 staff, representing 61% of our staff as of December 31, 2024.” By the top of 2025, the grievance alleges, that determine had climbed to 863 staff – 62% of Webull’s international workforce.
The grievance additionally alleges that the US House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party delivered a letter to the CEO of Webull Financial – the corporate’s US broker-dealer arm – in December 2024, in search of details about the connection between Webull Financial and Webull’s China operations, and concerning the safety of buyer knowledge.
According to the grievance, Webull’s SEC filings characterised the Select Committee’s considerations as “largely primarily based on outdated and inaccurate data.”
That place grew to become more durable to carry on October 7, 2026. The grievance alleges that earlier than exchanges opened, CNBC reported the Select Committee had discovered a “profound hole” between how Webull introduced itself as an American firm and its precise management and operations. The committee additionally reportedly discovered that Webull “initially informed the Select Committee that it had no places of work or staff in China,” the grievance alleges.
Webull’s inventory dropped sharply. The grievance alleges the corporate’s Class A unusual shares fell $1.39 per share – roughly 19% – to shut at $5.89 on unusually heavy buying and selling quantity.
The grievance alleges the corporate’s founder and CEO – a citizen of the People’s Republic of China who, as of March 31, 2026, held roughly 79.2% of complete voting energy – “knew or recklessly disregarded” the extent of Webull’s dependence on China-based operations.
For advisors and compliance groups, this grievance is value watching. The allegations increase questions on due diligence on broker-dealer platforms with complicated cross-border constructions – and about what occurs when an organization’s SEC filings and a congressional investigation inform completely different tales about the place operations truly sit.
The allegations on this grievance haven’t been examined in court docket. No court docket has dominated on the deserves of the case.
