Together With Shaquille O’Neal and Tom Brady, Mercedes Lands in a Lawsuit Filed by Bankrupt FTX’s Users

Sabyasachi Biswas | 02/12/2023
Together With Shaquille O’Neal and Tom Brady, Mercedes Lands in a Lawsuit Filed by Bankrupt FTX's Users

The world of crypto hit rock bottom after FTX, a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency company, went bankrupt last year. The big player of the crypto world was declared bankrupt at the time when they owed their customers over $8 billion. Now, the users have filed a lawsuit and held Mercedes, as well as Shaquille O’Neal and Tom Brady accountable.

Mercedes is in disbelief with the lawsuit being filed against them. The users, who decided to file it, felt betrayed by Mercedes, O’Neal, and Brady for strengthening their trust in the company and making FTX more reliable to invest in.

The twin class lawsuit was filed on November 27, in Florida, United States. After The main accusations against Mercedes were reported to be “aiding and abetting and/or actively participating in the FTX Group’s massive, multibillion-dollar global fraud,” as per Formula1news.

This was due to how FTX, who were partners with the Silver Arrows often shared congratulatory messages on social media. Mercedes had the FTX logo on their F1 cars, and clothing and emblazoned in other areas of advertisement.

Who else faced the lawsuit apart from Mercedes?

Apart from Mercedes, NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, and NFL legend Tom Brady, two of Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton’s supporters were also named in the lawsuit. They have been accused of promoting unregistered and risky securities.

While O’Neal and Brady face the lawsuit, other renowned celebrities have now cleared themselves saying that they played no role in making FTX users deposit money in the cryptocurrency.

Notably, the MLB (Major League Baseball) was also named in the lawsuit, along with Mercedes. Even though MLB removed all associations with them soon after the bankruptcy, it was too little too late.

Interestingly, the complainants are of the opinion that if Mercedes wasn’t involved with FTX, they wouldn’t have been so deeply into investing. As for the CEO and Founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, he faced charges related to money laundering, conspiracy, and fraud this November.

On the other hand, few other names involved in the lawsuit such as American footballer Trevor Lawrence and YouTubers Kevin Paffrath and Tom Nash, have reached in agreements with the complainants.

Post Edited By: Somin Bhattacharjee
Lewis Hamilton Shaquille O'Neal Tom Brady

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Sabyasachi Biswas

Sabyasachi Biswas is an F1 journalist at The SportsRush. With over one and a half decades of love for the sport and five years of experience in the field, he dreams to be a regular at the paddock when the lights go out. A Red Bull fan and F1 fan in general over the years, he enjoyed watching Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel, and Max Verstappen dominate the track. Apart from F1, he's also a big-time Madridista and Federer fanatic. He was a sub-junior level footballer, won inter-district quizzes and debate competitions back in school. A travel freak throughout, he tries different cuisines and learns new cultures whenever he's away from the keyboard.

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