Niemann's $100 Million Lawsuit Against Carlsen and Chess.com
Hans Niemann filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit against Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com, and Hikaru Nakamura in October 2022. A federal court dismissed the case in June 2023, and the parties settled in August 2023.
What we know
Chess grandmaster Hans Niemann filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit in October 2022 against world champion Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com, and grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, alleging that their public statements and actions following cheating accusations against him had caused severe reputational and financial harm.
The lawsuit arose directly from the fallout of Carlsen's September 2022 withdrawal from a tournament after losing to Niemann, an action widely interpreted as an implicit cheating accusation, followed by Chess.com's decision to ban Niemann from its platform and publish a detailed report describing a pattern of past online cheating. Niemann's suit argued these actions, combined with public commentary from Nakamura discussing the allegations extensively on his popular streaming channel, constituted defamation and unlawful coordination that damaged his tournament invitations and sponsorship opportunities.
A U.S. federal court in Missouri dismissed the lawsuit in June 2023, ruling that Niemann's own complaint, by acknowledging he had in fact cheated online in the past as detailed in Chess.com's report, undermined the defamation claims regarding statements about his history of online cheating, since true statements cannot form the basis of a defamation claim under U.S. law. The court's dismissal focused heavily on this specific legal standard rather than making a fresh independent finding on the separate, more contested question of whether Niemann cheated during his in-person, over-the-board game against Carlsen.
Following the dismissal of most claims, the parties reached a settlement in August 2023, the terms of which were not fully disclosed publicly, but which resulted in Niemann being reinstated to Chess.com's platform and included statements from the involved parties describing the matter as resolved. Niemann has continued his competitive chess career since the settlement, including qualifying for and participating in elite invitational events, an indication that the chess establishment did not treat the settlement as a vindication of over-the-board cheating claims against him.
The legal outcome, a dismissal grounded substantially in the truth of Niemann's admitted online cheating history rather than a ruling on the separate over-the-board allegations, is frequently mischaracterized in casual discussion as either a full vindication or a full condemnation of Niemann, when the actual court record addresses a narrower legal question about defamation liability rather than settling the broader public debate about the specific Carlsen game.
Legal analysts who covered the case noted that Missouri's relatively demanding anti-SLAPP-style pleading standards for defamation claims made Niemann's suit a difficult one from the outset, particularly given that several of the most damaging public statements at issue involved characterizations of an admitted pattern of past conduct rather than a wholly invented allegation, a distinction central to the judge's dismissal order.
Common claims
- Niemann won his lawsuit against Carlsen and Chess.com.False
- The lawsuit was dismissed because Niemann cheated.Misleading
- The settlement included an admission of cheating by Niemann.False