The lawsuit targeted many Justin Bieber-like celebrities in the Yuga Labs’ NFTs token promotions.
Bored Apes NFTs are unique digital collectibles that were minted by Yuga Labs. In the last 3 quarters of 2021, the Bored Apes NFT collection grabbed huge popularity in the crypto sector because of the involvement of high-level celebrities as NFTs buyers.
On Thursday of this week, a lawsuit was filed against Yuga Labs. The lawsuit alleged that Yuga Labs illegally promoted its NFTs collection through the endorsement of high-profile celebrities without disclosing its promotional hidden strategies publicly.
The big celebs’ names including Justin Bieber, Madonna, Steph Curry, and Paris Hilton are key contributors to making Yuga Labs’ NFTs collection highly popular. Allegedly all of these celebrities failed to disclose their partnership with Yuga Labs, that they got payment in bulk to show interest in Bored Apes Yacht NFTs trade activities.
Through the lawsuit, the plaintiff claimed that such unfair activities fall under 10 charges ranging from violations of California’s consumer protection laws to violations of federal securities laws. Here popular crypto payment platform MoonPay is also on the radar in the lawsuit, which allegedly helped Yuga Labs to facilitate huge amounts of payments secretly to celebrities.
On Friday of this week, a suit was filed by the defendants in the Central District of California, which named 37 names from Yuga Labs to MoonPay.
Yuga Labs vigorously denies the allegations and said that the defendants will do their best to prove that Yuga Labs’ Bored Apes Yacht NFTs were not under celebrity endorsement under any kind of sponsorship program.
“In our view, these claims are opportunistic and parasitic,” a company spokesperson told Decrypt. “We strongly believe that they are without merit, and look forward to proving as much.”
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