NBA Sued Mid-Season For Pushing Mark Cuban's Crypto Scams

"There is no dispute that the NBA was to serve as the 'gatekeeper.'"

Cuban Links

It's sportsball season in America, and the National Basketball Association is being sued, by pissed-off investors who lost billions over a cryptocurrency scam promoted by the Dallas Mavericks at the behest of its former owner [and Shark Tank star] Mark Cuban.

The new class action lawsuit, filed in the US District Court of Southern Florida on behalf of shafted investors who put their money into the (now-defunct) Voyager crypto exchange, is accusing the NBA not only of gross negligence but also for making crypto schemes seem more legit than they were.

At the center of the suit was the NBA's approval of Cuban's deal with Voyager, which went belly-up in July 2022 and took with it a bunch of investor funds.

"There is no dispute that the NBA was to serve as the 'gatekeeper', and required to affirmatively approve any and all NBA promotion and marketing campaigns, especially with crypto currency," the suit reads. "Evidence now reveals that the NBA was not only grossly negligent with its review of the proposed Voyager/Mavericks Global Partnership, but the NBA’s decision to affirmatively approve FTX sponsoring the Miami Heat Arena...was one of the most important steps, in the dramatic rise of cryptocurrency across the country, and across the globe."

Double Jeopardy

It's a pretty bold set of claims, and to be fair, they've been made before.

Not long after Voyager collapsed, disgruntled investor Dominik Karnas, who serves as a class representative on the more recent filing, sued Cuban, the Mavericks, and the exchange's former CEO Stephen Ehrlich for "[duping] millions of Americans into investing — in many cases, their life savings — into the Deceptive Voyager Platform."

"The NBA’s widespread promotion of Voyager’s unregistered securities," the suit reads, "renders it liable for any and all resulting damages."

This year's lawsuit also names Voyager's attorneys, McCarter & English, as defendants, accusing the firm of producing "fraudulent legal opinions" and contributing to an alleged conspiracy to push the exchange and crypto in general.

While it's from the first lawsuit brought by irked investors bilked out of their money by one of crypto's many get-rich-quick schemes, these Karnas cases prove that that individual, at very least, has the drive and/or capital to file a bunch of complaints over the wrongs he believes he suffered.

It may not be pretty, and the plaintiff may not have been smart, but as they say down in Florida, that man is doing the Lord's work.

More on crypto: Attempt to Reboot FTX Fails Miserably