Photo Courtesy Of Shaq and Steph Curry/ Instagram
Shaq, Steph Curry, Naomi Osaka and other high-profile celebrities have been sued for endorsing allegedly “fraudulent” crypto exchange, FTX.
According to Detroit BIN News, several celebrities have been named in a class-action lawsuit for endorsing FTX–a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange–and its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. The lawsuit alleged that FTX is a “fraudulent scheme” that was created “to take advantage of unsophisticated investors from across the country.”
The suit, which listed star athletes Shaq, Steph Curry, Naomi Osaka, and David Ortiz, among others, described FTX as a “house of cards” and “a Ponzi scheme.” It also claimed that the currency exchange “shuffled customer funds between their opaque affiliated entities.” As such, it alleged that FTX used funds raised from its new investors to pay old ones.
The lawsuit also alleged that the defendants named are “responsible for the many billions of dollars in damages they caused” and that due to FTX’s activity with investors’ money, “American consumers collectively sustained over $11 billion in damages.”
Earlier in November, FTX announced that it started the process of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after Bankman-Fried resigned from his post as CEO.
“The immediate relief of Chapter 11 is appropriate to provide the FTX Group the opportunity to assess its situation and develop a process to maximize recoveries for stakeholders,” John J. Ray III, who took over the CEO position, announced on Nov. 11. “The FTX Group has valuable assets that can only be effectively administered in an organized joint process. I want to ensure every employee, customer, creditor, contract party, stockholder, investor, governmental authority, and other stakeholder that we are going to conduct this effort with diligence, thoroughness and transparency.”
As of right now, it’s unclear as to how liable the celebrities named are in this case. None of them have publicly responded to the lawsuit yet.