FTX court documents reveal celebrity promotion fee O'Neal paid $750,000

Author: Nicholas Morgan, Decrypt; Compiler: Songxue, Golden Finance

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX filed a lawsuit against Shaquille O'Neal, Naomi Osaka and David Ortiz, according to court documents in the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. ) and other celebrities paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-profile marketing and sponsorship deals.

In a court filing filed by FTX's current management in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, the company revealed a detailed list of celebrities, businesses and sports teams that have received payments as part of its marketing blitz over the years.

The company acknowledged that the list itself "may not reflect an exhaustive list of all deposits and repayments" but was working to identify all outstanding payments from previous years to understand how much of them could be recovered to repay the debt.

The list includes payments made to many celebrities who were promoters of FTX before its collapse.

According to the documents, FTX paid nearly $750,000 to former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, approximately $308,000 to tennis star Naomi Osaka, and nearly $206,000 to Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence. US dollars, paying approximately $271,000 to former Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz.

Some of these celebrities have already been sued by FTX's creditors over their promotion of the company, which eventually collapsed last November. O'Neal and Osaka are both involved in a class-action lawsuit filed in May in Florida federal court alleging they illegally promoted interest-bearing accounts that were actually unregistered securities.

Over the years, FTX and its now-disgraced founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, devoted considerable energy to glitzy promotions starring the rich and powerful.

SBF often hosted guests at his home in the Bahamas, such as NFL quarterback Tom Brady, former President Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The company even purchased the naming rights to the Miami Heat stadium and spent more than $6 million on a 30-second Super Bowl ad in February.

The current FTX team is exploring options to claw back funds released to promoters over the years as a way to pay off massive debt. However, it acknowledged that the amount ultimately recovered "may differ materially from the amount reported in the filing."