Shaquille O’Neal sits at the bench ahead of the sport between the Indiana Pacers and the Unutilized York Knicks all the way through Sport 2 of the 2025 Japanese Convention Finals at Madison Sq. Field in Unutilized York Town, Unutilized York, on Might 23, 2025.
Jesse D. Garrabrant | Nationwide Basketball Affiliation | Getty Photographs
Shaquille O’Neal has indubitably to pay $1.8 million to decide claims that he misled traders via selling the now-bankrupt crypto alternate FTX.
The retired NBA famous person, who as soon as recommended lovers to consider the platform, will get to the bottom of the allegations with out admitting wrongdoing. However the offer marks probably the most first high-profile settlements within the felony reckoning over FTX’s fall down.
The proposed agreement, filed in Florida federal court docket, would finish a category motion lawsuit accusing O’Neal of presenting FTX as a devoted and legit funding device — in particular at are living occasions and in social media content material — date allegedly serving to pressure adoption of unregistered securities.
The category contains somebody who deposited cash into FTX or held its proprietary token, FTT, between Might 2019 and overdue 2022.
If the overseeing pass judgement on approves the offer, O’Neal’s $1.8 million payout will preserve all felony charges, realize and management prices and payouts to eligible traders. The association additionally features a sweeping loose from past legal responsibility, and a provision barring him from in quest of compensation from the FTX chapter property.
In snip: The test he’s writing is ultimate — and all-inclusive.
“We are pleased to have this matter behind us,” suggest for O’Neal stated in a remark.
Not like alternative superstar defendants and previous FTX endorsers — together with Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen and Steph Curry — whose circumstances had been in large part brushed aside, O’Neal remained entangled later a long attempt to serve him felony papers.
Front Office Sports reported in February that O’Neal inked a $15 million offer to stay with TNT’s “Inside the NBA.”
O’Neal informed CNBC in 2022 that, relating to FTX, he “was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”
O’Neal used to be named in a category motion lawsuit alleging that FTX’s spokespeople “either controlled, promoted, assisted in [or] actively participated” in a plot to “aggressively market” the corporate.
In previous interviews with CNBC Create It, O’Neal stated he used to be actively averting cryptocurrency.
“I don’t understand it, so I will probably stay away from it until I get a full understanding of what it is,” he stated on the while, including: “From my experience, it is too good to be true.”
