While Tom Brady, Shaquille O'Neal, Giselle Bündchen, Larry David and other celebrity promoters are currently being sued over their endorsement of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Taylor Swift isn't among them - because she was the only celebrity to ask whether NFTs were unregistered securities, according to the lawyer handling a class-action lawsuit against the other celebs.
During an appearance on "The Scoop" podcast, attorney Adam Moskowitz said the plaintiffs are seeking more than $5 billion from the celebrity endorsers, who he says didn't do their due diligence to determine whether the crypto exchange was breaking the law.
"The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift," said Moskowitz, who added that FTX wanted Swift to sell concert tickets as NFTs - which Swift questioned.
"In our discovery, Taylor Swift actually asked them: 'Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?'" said Moskowitz.
Swift's father notably used to work for Merrill Lynch.
I’m not surprised. Taylor is smart and her father is a well-regarded investment banker.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023
According to the Financial Times, Swift began discussing the $100 million sponsorship in the fall of 2021. FTX would implode one year later, after concerns over commingling customer funds led to a stampede of withdrawals.
The class-actioon lawsuit accuses celebrities of promoting an unregistered security - which, when sold in the United States, must be registered with the SEC. In a December complaint, the SEC said that the company's cryptocurrency, FTT, was classified as a security because it was sold as an investment contract, yet was not appropriately registered.
"In order to induce confidence and to drive consumers to invest in what was ultimately a Ponzi scheme," the defendants "made numerous misrepresentations and omissions," according to the lawsuit.
