A Lawsuit Claims Justin Bieber and Other Celebrities Worked With Yuga Labs to Promote Boring Ape NFTs
According to a class action complaint filed on Thursday, several famous people—including Steph Curry, Madonna, Justin Bieber, as well as Paris Hilton—broke both state and federal laws when they advertised Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs without telling Yuga Labs about their financial connections.
No fewer than 37 co-defendants were identified in the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in the Central Division of California of the U.S. District Court. These included CEOs and other well-known people as well as Yuga leadership. Additionally mentioned is MoonPay, the cryptocurrency payments start-up that reportedly made those sponsorships possible.
Despite the lawsuit’s ten claims, which range from breaking federal securities laws to breaking California’s consumer protection laws, its 100-page petition really only tells one tale.
It describes a complex alleged plot that Hollywood’s elite allegedly designed to increase the worth of Bored Apes through a barrage of celebrity endorsements while secretly benefiting everyone involved through a clandestine payments scam laundered through a well-known cryptocurrency corporation.
According to the lawsuit, Yuga’s longstanding agent for Madonna, Guy Oseary, urged his wide-ranging celebrity connections to publicly endorse Yuga’s products, specifically Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, in return for contributions from Yuga that were covertly sent through MoonPay. Oseary, who is also listed as a founder in the lawsuit, invested in MoonPay at an early stage.
Numerous of the suit’s famous defendants, such as Jimmy Fallon, Justin Bieber, Hilton, Stephen Curry, Kevin Hart, as well as Gwyneth Paltrow, are investors in MoonPay, which has a current valuation of $3.4 billion. By providing a white-glove solution that allowed the purchase of expensive NFTs for high-profile clients, the company rose to popularity in 2021.
According to the lawsuit filed on Thursday, MoonPay was actually a “front operation” that covertly transferred funds from Yuga Laboratories, a $4 billion business that owns the Bored Ape NFT celebrities, who then promoted the NFTs under Oseary’s supervision without reporting their wealth.
For their part, Yuga Labs vehemently refutes the accusations.
“According to us, these assertions are parasitic and opportunistic,” a firm representative told Decrypt. “We are certain that they are lacking merit and are looking forward to demonstrating that.”
The lawsuit was brought by Scott+Scott, a law firm that in July suggested bringing another class-action lawsuit against Yuga. Then, that company sought victims for a prospective lawsuit, alleging that Yuga Labs had broken securities laws in selling and promoting Bored Ape NFTs as well as ApeCoin, the Ethereum-based currency used in the Bored Ape ecosystem.
An inquiry for comments was not immediately answered by the legal firm.
To win the case, the plaintiff’s attorneys will need to demonstrate that Yuga’s team of celebrity endorsers used unfair or misleading tactics while endorsing the business’s goods. That bar would most likely be met by receiving covert payments through a complex cover-up system; whether such a plan can be demonstrated, however, is another thing.
The complaint makes similar claims to the firm’s first lawsuit, including that Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs are unlicensed securities. If true, such an accusation would increase the threshold for information sharing.
Although the American judiciary has yet to determine that such “blue chip” account pictures (PFP) NFT collections, such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club, are securities, a report from October stated that Yuga Labs is under investigation by the U.S. Securities as well as Exchange Commission (SEC) for possible securities violations.
