Shaquille O’Neal sits on the bench earlier than the sport between the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks throughout Sport 2 of the 2025 Japanese Convention Finals at Madison Sq. Backyard in New York Metropolis, New York, on Could 23, 2025.
Jesse D. Garrabrant | Nationwide Basketball Affiliation | Getty Photographs
Shaquille O’Neal has agreed to pay $1.8 million to settle claims that he misled buyers by selling the now-bankrupt crypto trade FTX.
The retired NBA celebrity, who as soon as urged followers to belief the platform, will resolve the allegations with out admitting wrongdoing. However the deal marks one of many first high-profile settlements within the authorized reckoning over FTX’s collapse.
The proposed settlement, filed in Florida federal courtroom, would finish a category motion lawsuit accusing O’Neal of presenting FTX as a reliable and bonafide funding device — significantly at stay occasions and in social media content material — whereas allegedly serving to drive adoption of unregistered securities.
The category consists of anybody who deposited cash into FTX or held its proprietary token, FTT, between Could 2019 and late 2022.
If the overseeing choose approves the deal, O’Neal’s $1.8 million payout will cowl all authorized charges, discover and administration prices and payouts to eligible buyers. The association additionally features a sweeping launch from future legal responsibility, and a provision barring him from in search of reimbursement from the FTX chapter property.
Briefly: The verify he is writing is ultimate — and all-inclusive.
“We’re happy to have this matter behind us,” counsel for O’Neal mentioned in an announcement.
In contrast to different superstar defendants and former FTX endorsers — together with Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen and Steph Curry — whose circumstances had been largely dismissed, O’Neal remained entangled after a prolonged effort to serve him authorized papers.
Front Office Sports reported in February that O’Neal inked a $15 million deal to stay with TNT’s “Contained in the NBA.”
O’Neal informed CNBC in 2022 that, relating to FTX, he “was only a paid spokesperson for a industrial.”
O’Neal was named in a category motion lawsuit alleging that FTX’s spokespeople “both managed, promoted, assisted in [or] actively participated” in a plot to “aggressively market” the corporate.
In earlier interviews with CNBC Make It, O’Neal mentioned he was actively avoiding cryptocurrency.
“I do not perceive it, so I’ll most likely steer clear of it till I get a full understanding of what it’s,” he mentioned on the time, including: “From my expertise, it’s too good to be true.”
