On Thursday, December 8, Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP filed a class action complaint on behalf of plaintiffs Adam Titcher and Adonis Real with the United States Central District Court of California, Western Division. The complaint targets Yuga Labs, the company behind BAYC NFTs, and a long list of celebrities, including Justin Bieber, Madonna and Paris Hilton who are being held responsible for unrealistically hyping up the value of Yuga Labs’ assets.
The suit was filed alongside evidence outlining how Yuga Labs used MoonPay as an intermediary to pay people for promoting the NFT collection. MoonPay is an NFT exchange for celebrities and just ordinary people, that was started by talent manager Guy Oseary, Madonna’s representative. Allegedly, Oseary is the one who conspired with Yuga Labs to provide this intermediary. The filing claims the defendants violated the law by not disclosing their relationship with Yuga Labs when endorsing the NFTs.
The plaintiffs are demanding a trial on these charges, requesting at least $5 million for damages and restitution to be awarded to them and anyone who suffered financial losses by purchasing Yuga’s NFTs or ApeCoin, starting from April 23rd, 2021. Meanwhile, Yuga Labs has denied the allegations in the lawsuit, claiming it is “opportunistic and parasitic” without any merits. Actually, this is the second lawsuit against the company from the Scott+Scott law firm. In July, they announced a class action against Yuga Labs for basically the same thing. Yuga is also facing investigations from the SEC over potential securities violations.
Celebrity endorsers are increasingly facing lawsuits for their promotions of crypto-related products. For instance, we recently wrote about Kim Kardashian, who paid a $1.26 million fine to SEC for touting the crypto asset, EthereumMax, on Instagram. We continue to observe.
