Attorney suing over FTX collapse calls out those allegedly liable
Adam Moskowitz voices his concerns about the company's meltdown on 'The Story.'
The lawyer behind the class-action lawsuit against the now-collapsed crypto trading company FTX said Wednesday that high-profile celebrities such as legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban should be held liable for violating Florida law and causing consumers to suffer more than $11 billion in damages.
Florida lawyer Adam Moskowitz is representing FTX investor Edwin Garrison in the lawsuit against its founder, crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. The suit, which also targets celebrities who've promoted the platform with commercials and other endorsements, comes almost a week after the company filed for bankruptcy. Moskowitz is simultaneously representing investors in a separate case against crypto broker Voyager Digital, who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July, freezing their customers’ assets.
"We’ve been battling Voyager, which was the third-largest crypto company here in Miami for over a year. The end result was going to be that FTX was going to put in a billion dollars and give it to the victims of Voyager," Moskowitz told Fox News on "The Story" Wednesday. "What happened last week? FTX goes bankrupt. So they now have about $11 billion that they have taken from investors."
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Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, during the Bloomberg Crypto Summit in New York, US, on Tuesday, July 19, 2022. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Moskowitz said that the FTX lawsuit, which names Bankman-Fried, Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors, Shaquille O’Neal, and others, seeks to hold "anybody and everybody that could be liable" accountable for causing his clients several billions in damages.
"There are celebrities that made a lot of money and promoted this product," he said. "There’s case law right on point that unless you tell people you’re getting paid and how much you’re getting paid and what your incentive is, you can be liable."
Moskowitz pointed to Kim Kardashian's recent $1.26 million settlement with the SEC over her June 2021 endorsement of EMAX tokens, a crypto asset offered by EtherumMax., which she touted to her followers without disclosing mutually agreed upon compensation for her endorsement.
Moskowitz pointed out that Kardashian, who recently launched her own private equity firm, is not the first celebrity to be disciplined by the SEC. In 2018, both boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and music producer DJ Khaled were charged after allegedly failing to disclose how much they were each paid to promote investments in initial coin offerings.
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Kim Kardashian agreed to pay $1.26 million to settle charges that she unlawfully touted a crypto asset on social media without disclosing the payment she received for the promotion. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
"Floyd Mayweather was liable. DJ Khaled was liable. Kim Kardashian was liable," he said.
Turning to the Voyager class action, the Coral Gables lawyer alleged that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban committed "the worst of all" for his endorsement of the now-bankrupt crypto platform.
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"The worst of all was Mark Cuban, who not only did an Instagram post, he did road shows," Moskowitz claimed. "He took his Dallas Mavericks team to promote the Voyager stock. He said it was the safest and best investment. He certainly promoted the product. He could be liable."
The lawsuit was filed in Florida because the defendants, it says, "conduct business in Florida, and/or have otherwise intentionally availed themselves of the Florida consumer market through the promotion, marketing, and sale of FTX’s YBAs in Florida, which constitutes committing a tortious act within the state of Florida."
Fox Business' Greg Norman contributed to this report.