Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo has been served a lawsuit for promoting cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The suit was filed by Michael Sizemore, Mikey Vongdara, and Gordon Lewis in Florida District Court on November 27, 2023.
The plaintiffs allege losses from Ronaldo’s marketing of the exchange, following a US investigation in which Binance was asked to pay $4.3 billion in settlements for alleged failure in anti-money laundering practices. The complaint claims Ronaldo “promoted, assisted in, and/or actively participated in the offer and sale of unregistered securities in coordination with Binance.“ The lawyer also suspects there was an agreement of unspecified payments between the footballer and Binance upon him striking a multi-year partnership deal for marketing Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
Moreover, an additional suggestion in the filling implies that, given Ronaldo’s perceived “investment experience and vast resources to obtain outside advisers,“ he should have been aware of Binance selling unregistered cryptosecurities. The law accuses him of failing to disclose any payments received for promoting cryptocurrencies, which goes against restriction imposed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
