Taylor Swift left Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX's $100 million sponsorship contract.A lawyer suing celebrities for promoting FTX claims Swift alone enquired about unregistered securities.
According to the lawyer representing multiple FTX promoters in a class-action complaint, Taylor Swift was the only star to query the crypto exchange & so escaped a $100 million endorsement agreement.
Adam Moskowitz discussed the complaint on "The Scoop" podcast, saying the plaintiffs are demanding over $5 billion from FTX's famous endorsers, including Shaquille O'Neal, Tom Brady, and Larry David.
The lawyer said celebrities didn't investigate FTX's legality. "The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift," Moskowitz told The Scoop's Frank Chaparro.
According to the Financial Times, the musician, whose father worked at Merrill Lynch, started discussing the $100 million tour sponsorship with FTX in autumn 2021.
According to FTX marketing employees, "no one really liked the deal" and it was "too expensive from the beginning."
Stocks and bonds are securities. The SEC must register all US securities. The SEC charged FTX officials with selling FTT as an investment contract, making it a security. It was misregistered.
"Defendants committed multiple misrepresentations and omissions to encourage trust and to urge customers to participate in what was ultimately a Ponzi scheme," the lawsuit states.
After large client withdrawals, the crypto exchange collapsed in November. Lawyers argued extravagant spending and a $65 billion line of credit prevented it from meeting that requirement.
A month later, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas for securities fraud, money laundering, and bribery.
Swift didn't reply to Insider's request for comment. Bankman-Fried's representative denied comment.