**Taylor Swift Rejected $100 Million FTX Sponsorship Over 'Unregistered Securities' Question**
Taylor Swift Rejected $100 Million FTX Sponsorship Over 'Unregistered Securities' Question
While Tom Brady, Shaquille O'Neal, Giselle Bündchen, Larry David and other celebrity promoters **are currently being sued (https://deadline.com/2022/11/tom-brady-giselle-bundchen-ftx-lawsuit-larry-david-steph-curry-crypto-1235174541/)** over their endorsement of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, **Taylor Swift isn't among them - because she was the only celebrity to ask whether NFTs were unregistered securities**, according to the lawyer handling a class-action lawsuit against the other celebs.
?itok=Hw8CRX2j (
?itok=Hw8CRX2j)
During an appearance on "The Scoop" podcast, attorney Adam Moskowitz said the plaintiffs are seeking more than $5 billion from the celebrity endorsers, who he says didn't do their due diligence to determine whether the crypto exchange was breaking the law.
"The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift," said Moskowitz, who added that FTX wanted Swift to sell concert tickets as NFTs - which Swift questioned.
"In our discovery, Taylor Swift actually asked them: 'Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?'" said Moskowitz.
Swift's father notably used to work for Merrill Lynch.
> I’m not surprised. Taylor is smart and her father is a well-regarded investment banker.
>
> — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1648548827979304960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
According to the _Financial Times_ (https://www.ft.com/content/2b0601e2-d371-404d-8531-227f11d4a83f), Swift began discussing the $100 million sponsorship in the fall of 2021. FTX would implode one year later, after concerns over commingling customer funds led to a stampede of withdrawals.
The class-actioon lawsuit accuses celebrities of promoting an unregistered security - which, when sold in the United States, must be registered with the SEC. In a December complaint, the SEC said that the company's cryptocurrency, FTT, was classified as a security because it was sold as an investment contract, yet was not appropriately registered.
"In order to induce confidence and to drive consumers to invest in what was ultimately a Ponzi scheme," the defendants "made numerous misrepresentations and omissions," according to the lawsuit.
Tyler Durden (https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden)Wed, 04/19/2023 - 19:20