June 13 (UPI) – Shaquille O’Neal, the retired basketball star and NBA analyst, agreed to pay $ 1.8 million to settle complaints that he induced investors on promotion by promoting the Crypto Exchange, now hit, FTX.
O’Neal, who urged fans to trust the platform in an advertisement, would not admit reprehensible acts. He would have won much less to advertise broadcast in June 2022: around $ 750,000, Front Office Sports reported.
The colony Monday marks one of the first high -level colonies on the collapse of FTX, CNBC reported.
The civil affair before the Miami Federal Court. O’Neal must pay the amount within 30 days. A first regulation was concluded in November.
In the pursuit of the class, O’Neal is accused of presenting FTX as a trustworthy and legitimate investment tool while helping to stimulate the adoption of unregistered titles.
Users who deposited money in FTX or held its owner token, FTT, between May 2019 and the end of 2022.
Payment of $ 1.8 million from O’Neal will cover all legal costs, opinion and administration costs and payments to those eligible. He is also freed from future responsibility and he is prevented from requesting the reimbursement of the FTX bankruptcy succession.
“We are happy to have this question behind us,” said O’Neal’s lawyer in a statement.
In 2022, O’Neal told CNBC that he “was only a spokesperson paid for advertising”.
At the time, he said he didn’t know much about cryptocurrency.
“I do not understand it, so I will probably stay away until I fully understand what it is,” he told CNBS. “According to my experience, it’s too good to be true.”
Other FTX endorships, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen and Steph Curry, had claims against them widely rejected.
FTX, a company in the Bahamas, was the third largest cryptocurrency scholarship three years ago, but it accumulated billions of dollars or losses and filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022.
The founder Sam Bankman was the subject of a 25 -year prison sentence for seven chiefs of fraud and conspiracy linked to the collapse of the FTX.
O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson leave TNT next season when “Inside The NBA” appears on ESPN.
