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After a divorce and a 6-7 start to the NFL season, Tom Brady’s miserable 2022 is in danger of getting worse, somehow.
A proposed class action lawsuit seeks to hold the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, his ex-wife Gisele Bundchen, and nine other celebrity FTX backers accountable for the recent collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.
“As a lifelong New England Patriots fan, you can imagine the influence Tom Brady would have,” Michael Livieratos told the Washington Post after allegedly losing $30,000 in the FTX bankruptcy.
After a divorce and a 6-7 start to the NFL season, Tom Brady’s miserable 2022 is in danger of getting worse, somehow. A proposed class action lawsuit seeks to hold the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, his ex-wife Gisele Bundchen and nine other famous FTX backers responsible for the recent collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.
FTX was a high-profile cryptocurrency exchange that made big inroads among investors, thanks to celebrity endorsements. Earlier this year, Brady was seen in an ad for the platform, prompting Livieratos to move his life savings from a cryptocurrency exchange to FTX, he told the Post.
FTX has since collapsed, and on Tuesday the US government filed criminal and civil charges against Sam Bankman-Fried, the exchange’s 30-year-old founder of FTX, accusing him of widespread financial fraud.
The problem for Livieratos and the other plaintiffs in the proposed class action lawsuit is that recovering the losses will be difficult, considering that FTX has reportedly been wiped out by the crash.
“We’re not going to be able to recoup all the losses here,” FTX’s new chief executive John J. Ray III recently told a House committee.
Sam Bankman-Fried on stage with Gisele Bundchen (right) earlier this year at a conference
Both Brady and Stephen Curry signed endorsement deals with Bankman-Friend’s FTX
Tom Brady is one of several celebrities who have promoted FTX as a secure cryptocurrency exchange.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka also signed a deal with FTX before the cryptocurrency exchange went bankrupt.
With the help of Florida attorney Adam Moskowitz, Livieratos and the other plaintiffs are now seeking to hold FTX’s celebrity endorsers accountable, including tennis star Naomi Osaka, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry and businessman Kevin ‘Mr. Wonderful’ O’Leary from the reality show ‘Shark Tank.’
“There are very rich people that we all love telling us that they reviewed this and that it was okay,” Moskowitz said in an interview. ‘Why shouldn’t they be held responsible?’
The proposed lawsuit argues that the exchange’s interest-bearing accounts were technically a security, requiring its backers to publish the details of their FTX compensation.
“They have never disclosed the nature, scope and amount of the compensation they personally received in exchange for the promotion,” the complaint alleges.
And without that information, Moskowitz argues, investors were unfairly disadvantaged.
But the lawsuit is anything but a sure thing.
Last month, a federal judge in California filed a similar lawsuit against Kim Kardashian, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., and others who promoted a crypto token, EMAX, in a failed attempt to artificially increase its value.
The backers agreed to pay millions in fines to the SEC, but the judge decided that the investors had some responsibility for their own losses.
With the help of Florida attorney Adam Moskowitz (pictured), Livieratos and the other plaintiffs are now seeking to hold FTX’s celebrity endorsers accountable, including tennis star Naomi Osaka, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry and businessman Kevin ‘Mr. Wonderful’ O’Leary from the reality show ‘Shark Tank.’ “There are very rich people that we all love telling us that they reviewed this and that it was okay,” Moskowitz said in an interview. ‘Why shouldn’t they be held responsible?’