Former NBA participant Shaquille O’Neal pays $1.8 million to settle a category motion lawsuit associated to the demise of cryptocurrency trade FTX.
O’Neal, and different celebrities like Tom Brady and Stephen Curry, have been named within the lawsuit in 2022. That they had been accused of touting FTX as a good and reliable funding choice through paid endorsements. The proposed settlement solely pertains to O’Neal.
Three years in the past FTX was the third-largest cryptocurrency trade, but it surely ended up with billions of {dollars} value of losses and needed to search chapter safety. The Bahamas-based firm and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, got here below investigation by state and federal authorities for allegedly investing depositors funds in ventures with out their approval.
Earlier than its failure, FTX was identified to make use of high-profile Hollywood and sports activities celebrities to advertise its merchandise. It had the naming rights to a Method One racing group in addition to a sports activities enviornment in Miami. Its commercials featured “Seinfeld” creator Larry David, in addition to Brady, the previous quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots, basketball gamers O’Neal and Curry, and tennis star Naomi Osaka.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in jail in March 2024. Slightly greater than a month after that, FTX mentioned in a court docket submitting that almost all of its clients would obtain the cash again that they have been owed.
Whereas the proposed settlement with O’Neal had been agreed to in April, the fee quantity and different phrases have been disclosed in a submitting with the U.S. District Court docket, Southern District of Florida, Miami Division, earlier this week.
The settlement class consists of anybody who deposited funds into FTX or purchased its FTT token between Could 2019 and late 2022.
The settlement, which nonetheless wants court docket approval, would offer O’Neal with a broad launch from future claims and in addition features a stipulation that he can’t search reimbursement from the FTX property.
The fee shall be made inside 30 days of the settlement being finalized, based on the submitting.