The news:
- Christiano Ronaldo is being sued for $1 billion over his promotion of Binance and the unregistered securities it offers US citizens.
- This lawsuit is coming a few days after Binance and its former CEO, Champeng Zhao, plead guilty to money laundering.
- Ronaldo signed a multi-year contract with Binance in mid-2022 to promote non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Michael Sizemore, Mikey Vongdaram, and Gordon Lewis have filed a lawsuit against renowned football player, Ronaldo for promoting Binance in the US.
The class action lawsuit that was filed on Tuesday, November 27, 2023, is for a sum exceeding $1 billion. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs — Sizemore, Vongdaram and Lewis — said they suffered losses after Ronaldo used his influence to promote Binance.
Ronaldo “promoted, assisted in, and/or actively participated in the offer and sale of unregistered securities in coordination with Binance.“ the file said.
However, the crux of the lawsuit was that Ronaldo knowingly or unknowingly assisted Binance in soliciting US customers when the company did not have regulatory approval to do so.
“Binance feigned efforts to exclude U.S. customers from Binance.com but knowingly and intentionally permitted and even encouraged certain U.S.-based customers to use Binance.com.”
The document pointed out how the company and its CEO recently pleaded guilty to money laundering among other charges.
Ronaldo should have known
“Given Mr. Ronaldo’s investment experience and vast resources to obtain outside advisors, he knew or should have known of potential concerns about Binance selling unregistered crypto securities and/or that he was aiding and abetting Binance’s fraud and/or conversion,” the 129-page document read.
Ronaldo who has about 850 million followers across several social media platforms, entered a multi-year contract with Binance in 2022 to promote a series of his own NFTs.
The NFT launch by Ronaldo caused a 1,2500% increase in celebrity NFT searches in the world. while the keyword ‘Binance’ grew by nearly 500%.
