The National Basketball Association, or NBA, is facing a lawsuit over a previous marketing deal between bankrupt crypto lending platform Voyager Digital and the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. Users of the platform claim that the collaboration resulted in a total loss of more than $4.2 billion.
Crypto investors are suing the NBA
On February 6, the so-called class action lawsuit was filed in a Miami court.
The more than 100-page lawsuit accuses the NBA of “gross negligence” in approving the advertising deal.
In October 2021, Voyager Digital and Dallas Mavericks merged. For a period of five years, Voyager Digital would be the official crypto partner of the Dallas professional basketball team.
The lawsuit alleges that the NBA should be held liable for any damages resulting from its extensive promotion of Voyager’s unregistered securities. It is described as “an unregulated and unsustainable scam.”
According to the plaintiffs, the NBA “intentionally decided to assume the risks” inherent in working with crypto exchanges such as Voyager, Coinbase and FTX. This comes as the NBA has accepted “billions in advertising compensation” amid the challenges of “empty arenas and the loss of billions in television revenue” due to COVID-19.
The lawsuit also targets Voyager’s law firm McCarter & English. The complaint alleges that they abused their credibility by issuing a false “legal opinion” claiming that the Voyager tokens were not unregistered securities.
Voyager Digital was one of the many crypto companies that failed to stay afloat during the 2022 bear market. In July of the same year, the company filed for bankruptcy.
Voyager Digital was a platform that allowed users to lend their crypto coins, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
Previous lawsuit against Mark Cuban
In 2022, multi-billionaire Mark Cuban, the former owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was also sued by the same group of plaintiffs.
They claimed that Cuban promoted Voyager and made false statements about the platform’s security.
The “extensive investigation” into this case “now makes it clear” that the company should expand its legal action to include the NBA and McCarter & English.
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