Larry David sued for crypto ad in which he talked crap about crypto, which feels about right
David is being sued for being a "brand ambassador" for flailing cryptocurrency exchange FTX
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Natural entertainment partners Larry David, Tom Brady, and Shaq are collaborating at last—in a lawsuit, as Variety reports that all three famous guys, plus a number of other big-name folks, are being sued as part of a class-action suit against collapsing cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Specifically, they’ve been named as “brand ambassadors” in a suit from an Oklahoma man accusing the crypto exchange of employing celebrities to target “unsophisticated investors” in a “Ponzi scheme” in an effort to keep the exchange alive.
FTX itself, as well as former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, are both also named in the lawsuit, put forward by a man named Edwin Garrison, who says he was tricked into buying an FTX account, and who says that he hopes to represent “thousands, if not millions, of consumers nationwide” who were allegedly bilked by the company. Other celebrities targeted in the suit include Giselle Bündchen (who appeared with husband Brady in their “You’re In” ad), as well as Stephen Curry and his NBA team the Golden State Warriors, who loudly advertised FTX during their most recent season.
David’s participation in all this seems especially on-brand: Appearing in a Super Bowl ad (during this year’s crypto-heavy Super Bowl) in which the major appeal was him loudly declaring that crypto wouldn’t work, and wasn’t worth investing in. (This, after a long series of historical sketches of Larry David being wrong about technical innovations throughout history, mostly notable for featuring a lot of Larry David-type “acting.”) The upshot of this is that he’s being sued for promoting FTX in an ad where he doesn’t say a single nice thing about FTX, which feels like a pretty good encapsulation of the entire Larry David vibe.
FTX is currently in the sort of freefall that causes you to have separate sections for “Crisis begins,” “worsening crisis,” and “widening impact” on your Wikipedia page; the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 11, and is reportedly being investigated by both the SEC and the Justice Department.
101 Comments
It feels like you probably can’t sue an actor for appearing in a commercial.
Unless that actor is Steven Seagal, and the product is…Steven Seagal’s Lightning Bolt(!)
Did you get a full body skin rash ordering enough Lightning Bolt cans to fill your pool to swim in, too? We should class action this, buddy!
Steven Seagal assured me that if I drank Lightning Bolt, I’d have women hanging out with me by the pool.
I know. I tried to sue Alka-Seltzer back in the 70s because I considered that meatball to be decidedly unspicy.
I mean yeah, that’s really the long and short of it.Unless you can somehow prove the actors had insider information as to the illegal activities of the people at FTX. FTX didn’t collapse because the product they were selling was bad (it is tho), they collapsed because of illegal actions taken by the owners. Larry David and all the celebrities could have done an inconceivable amount of homework into researching and understanding crypto before appearing in the ad and even if they were the foremost academic scholar in crypto that wouldn’t make them liable for illegal activities of the owners.If Tom Hanks did a commercial for Playstation and I saw it and thought “You know Tom is really selling me on how great this is, I’m gonna invest my money in Sony” then it turns out Sony’s CEO is embezzling funds from the retirement plan and Sony goes belly up I can’t sue Tom Hanks for convincing me to buy Sony stock.
“He was pretending all along! Those things he said? He didn’t even come up with them! They were written by someone else! That can’t be legal, can it?”
He is the only person in the ad you can’t sue.Actually, you can’t sue anyone for being dumb enough to invest in crypto after Bitcoin. 10 years ago.
As Devin Stone is fond of saying you can sue anyone, you just aren’t necessarily going to get very far suing some people. And what would a discussion of lawsuits be without fine-grained linguistic nitpicking?
Bitcoin made millionaires, but other than that, sure. All stocks can be looked at as a ponzi scheme. They’re worth what the public says they’re worth. You get in low and you get out high. It’s silly to have any other argument.
I’m sorry. If you didn’t know crypto was a Ponzi scheme after all this time, then you are an idiot. And as far as I know, the courts generally don’t provide relief from your own stupidity.*and before anyone jumps in, read the MacDonalds “hot coffee” suit again. She was dumb, but that’s not whats at the heart of that court case.
“If you didn’t know crypto was a Ponzi scheme after all this time, then you are an idiot.”
Never forget, there are people who keep Vegas in business.
They also keep the movie and music and opera and broadway and luxury vehicle, clothing lines, etc in business. Gambling is entertainment with a chance to win. Just because you personally don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s foolish. You “waste” money going to a movie for entertainment with no positive financial outcome positive. How is that better than someone enjoying a night at the casino?
At least Vegas provides some kind of “entertainment” simulacrum.
But I’ve been losing so much there has to be a win around the corner!
Hey, at least Vegas gives you a free buffet dinner while they’re fleecing you!
And as far as I know, the courts generally don’t provide relief from your own stupidity.As far as I know, “reasonable person” standards still don’t allow you to get away with fraud.
“As far as I know, “reasonable person” standards still don’t allow you to get away with fraud.”Tell that to Cucker Tarlson.
The McDonalds lawsuit was justified. You shouldn’t need skin grafts just for spilling coffee on yourself.
Plus it would also be something if this was an isolated incident. But that McDonald’s had a long history of complaints over the years that their coffee was too hot.
Yeah basically the store was already warned that their coffee was so hot it violated some health or safety code. The lid was not properly secured. She initially just wanted them to pay her medical bills, but when they refused, her lawyers got them to pay for a days worth of coffee sales as damages.
Didn’t say it was. In fact, I was trying to prevent the opposite – people using that as “proof” that the courts WILL reward your stupidity.
While having the coffee between your legs is probably going to end with some spillage, it should not have been served hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns.
You should read the Mcdonald’s suit again, she wasn’t stupid. She was a 79 year old woman who got third degree burns from coffee at 180–190 °F (82-88 °C). From wikipedia “She underwent skin grafting. During this period, Liebeck lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg) (nearly 20 percent of her body weight), reducing her to 83 pounds (38 kg). After the hospital stay, Liebeck needed care for three weeks, which was provided by her daughter. Liebeck suffered permanent disfigurement after the incident and was partially disabled for two years”.The campaing by McDonald’s (and the willingness of the American public to side with big companies in lawsuits) painted her as a stupid (for spilling coffe) and as money-grubbing greedy woman trying to make a buck is why you consider her dumb.
She was not ‘dumb’, the coffee was ‘far hotter than industry standard, way too hot’.
It can both be true that McDonalds was negligent by serving cups of nearly steam and that lady holding a disposable coffee cup with her lap was dumb. She should have just had a bad day with some coffee-stained pants/seat instead of a skin graft because she was also being dumb.
“She should have just had a bad day with some coffee-stained pants/seat instead of a skin graft because she was also being dumb. but McD’s made coffee far hotter than it should have been, therefore the coffee stained pants turned into skin grafts instead”ftfyIf the coffee hadn’t been far too hot, she would have just had coffee stained pants. Since the coffee WAS far too hot, she had to get skin grafts.
Easily preventable actions that result in spilling coffee all over yourself are dumb actions. Just because that lady got wrongfully crushed by McD’s PR and got far more injured that she should have, doesn’t mean she did not do a dumb thing. Fucking around with fresh coffee in a car is a dumb thing that often results in spilled coffee. I’ve even done that dumb thing myself and acknowledged that was a dumb thing to do.
You’re objectively completely wrong about the coffee thing. She wasn’t “fucking around” with the coffee; she did nothing wrong or dumb. You picked the wrong example and believed total misinformation like a lot of people about the case. Stop doubling and tripling down and just take the L.
The car was parked. She was just taking the lid off to add cream and sugar. How is it “dumb” for a 79 year old to be doing a completely normal and expected action?
Sure, but it’s not like she knew the coffee was hot enough to give her 3rd degree burns. She engaged in what was usually a low-risk activity that was made exponentially more dangerous because of the negligence of the company. Engaging in low risk behaviour isn’t in and of itself “dumb”. You can probably think of situations where it’s actually a strategic way to accomplish a task or goal.
She wasn’t holding it with her lap and wasn’t driving. She parked after going through the drive through and was putting creamer in when she dropped it putting the lid back on.
Pre-lawsuit, cup holders weren’t the norm. She didn’t have anywhere safe and handy to put the cup.
A few things that skip first notice: most cars at the time had no cupholders. The cup would have been a foamed plastic that becomes softer at higher temperatures. The structure of the cup was significantly disrupted when the reinforcement of the lid was removed – more than a factor of 10X. McDonald’s provided sugar and cream to be added to the coffee, which required the lid to be removed. The sugar and cream require two hands to open, so no free hands to hold the coffee . McDonalds did have trays to hold drinks which they did not supply to her, a tray that would hold the cup upright if placed on the car floor. McDonalds every decision was one that increased the chance a customer would do exactly what she did. I think her legal team should have also gone after the unsuitability of the container. Had that been a ceramic mug she would have been fine. Had McDonalds put the sugar and cream into the coffee as part of the order, she would have been fine. Had McDonalds supplied a tray to hold the coffee, she would have been fine. As it is, car makers fixed the problem by selling cars with cup holders.
None of that negates the fact that messing with your coffee in your car is a dumb idea. It’s very common, but that doesn’t make it not dumb. In this specific case, the lady was going back home. A place with tables or counters to perform that very task. She likely still would have burned her mouth, like multiple other lawsuits McDonald’s settled. Making any adjustments to food/drinks in a car is a dumb idea that carries the common risk of causing a mess with the only benefit being you get to consume something marginally sooner. It is commonly performed dumb idea, but the frequency in no way takes away from it being a bad choice. It is just a bad choice where the risk should be a stain on your clothes.
“messing with your coffee” Lmao you’re still on this? Is it that hard to admit you were wrong?
I think during the trial they showed that McDonald’s coffee cups were half as thick as what most other fast food food companies used. The amount of penny-pinching by the world’s most successful fast food franchise was simply staggering, but all the general public remembers is “lady wins millions for spilling coffee on herself.”
Not just that, they’d been settling lawsuits all over the country because it was cheaper than swapping out their coffee machines (which only had one setting – molten lava). Her award was meant to break that pattern, and did.In this company’s case, if they were just mining and trading crypto then they weren’t doing anything wrong. Best I can tell the allegation is they were just stealing from depositors, which is blatantly criminal.
“if they were just mining and trading crypto then they weren’t doing anything legally wrong”ftfy lol
Ha, yeah no shit. Obviously any prudent investor is going to choose a store of value that can fluctuate 10%+ in a given day and has a reasonable chance of going to $0.
My point. People have used that as an example of stupid ruling by the courts … I was trying to prevent people from bring it up, incorrectly – one more time.
More to the point, if you decided to buy crypto because a celebrity or athlete told you to do it then you are an idiot.
“The Football Man told me I’d be rich! Why aren’t I rich, Football Man?”
It’s no crime being an idiot or uninformed. Someone falling for fishing after all this time should be even more of an idiot considering fishing scams are even more well known, but it’s still illegal.
Maybe powerful people shouldn’t shill for something everyone knew was a Ponzi scheme. I’d rather protect people from their own so-called stupidity, than protect powerful people from the consequences of accepting huge amounts of money to shill fraudulent products to their fans! Whose side are you on here?Also, the woman at the heart of the coffee case wasn’t dumb! She was doing what lots of people do after getting coffee from a DRIVE THRU.
“If you didn’t know crypto was a Ponzi scheme after all this time, then you are an idiot”That doesn’t make them okay. If anything, it makes them even worse, because they prey on the most vulnerable.
McDonalds was dumb for not settling as the original request was just covering her medical bills which was much cheaper than their eventual payout post litigation.
I mean, you’re right, these people were suckers, and they deserve to lose their lawsuit. But I’m also enjoying seeing these celebrity shills getting raked over the coals a bit for leveraging their status as public figures to help dupe a lot of suckers into this con job.
To be completely accurate, crypto as a concept isn’t necessarily a Ponzi scheme, although more than a few of these crypto firms have relied on Ponzi schemes to juice their books.Crypto is, however, a lousy investment tool that is easily prone to fraud.
The tokenization of bitcoin, and everyone needing to own a piece of it, is what killed the project. I don’t think Satoshi, or whomever “created” it, intended it to become like this. It was supposed to be the anti-bank. It just turned into an unregulated bank run by a few kids. Whatever the original intent, it’s not viable because the nature of man is to get greedy. And that corrupts the whole notion of decentralized finance. Someone will also have a little more knowledge on how to tip the scales in their favor. Then you throw in actual bad actors, who just flat out steal because the supposed super secure blockchain gets hacked.
Defrauding stupid people is still fraud. Yes, the victims were dumb, but the perpetrators still committed a crime.
Did the spokespeople commit fraud though?
That’s for a court to decide.
People really need to stop saying stuff like “thousands, if not millions”, it just reveals you can’t count or you don’t know what you’re talking about.
billions and billions
People should be obligated to say “thousands, if not thousands of thousands,” just to establish a consistent scale.
Can we add on saying “more than” a rather specific number? “I’ve eaten here more than 16 times.” “So, 17?”
Millions, if not tens or even dozens!
Like Arizona protests…
Our movement includes an amount of people such that n>0!
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I know they’re grist for the pop cultural journalism mill, but these “rando sues celebrity for whatever bullshit” stories are barely above “dog bites man” level. But I fail to see how David, who presumably was just picking up a paycheck, is liable for any of this.
Regardless of the unregulated cryptofinance industry being an expensive, damaging, and environmentally disastrous con game, this is a completely frivolous lawsuit. If people who lied in ads had to pay individually millions of dollars in fines for their lies, most Hollywood royalty and all of the US politicians would be homeless. False advertising is the main purpose of advertising… The execrable alex jones had been pilfering idiots out of their savings for decades with his snake-oil supplements and his multimillionaire-self was doing just fine until he actively instigated his nutcase followers to threaten parents of gun-murdered 6 -year olds with death. Even successful class action lawsuits against whole companies for false advertising rarely make a big dent in their profits, with tobacco companies being perhaps a case where they got hurt, but many are still around. In any event, if individual-targeting lawsuits like this were to be successful, capitalism and electioneering would just collapse.
I really wish Consumer Reports had more of an online and social media presence. They’ve been fighting against deceptive advertising for decades, but their reach is mostly limited to print.
I’m guessing, since they live off subscription fees and not ad revenue, they don’t want to be responsible for storing subscribers’ personal info electronically.
I was thinking more along the lines of 2-3 minute Youtube videos that break down why a given ad is complete BS.
Hey, not all of us law-talking guys are that bad. (Though the lawyer in this case makes Hutz look like Clarence Darrow.)
Was he the black guy on the Mod Squad?
Contingency?No, money down.
I watched Matlock in the Bar last night, the sound wasn’t on, but I got the gist of it.
If it can be proven that Larry David was knowingly trying to ensnare people in a ponzi scheme, this suit could have merit. Seeing as that’s extremely unlikely and he was instead just an actor being paid for a commercial, this is moronic.
Guess who aint getting sued baby
…yeah, while I generally try to avoid commentary on lawsuits and the like, given how they can frequently lean heavily on legal technicalities and I don’t have any skin in the game anyway……this lawsuit is like 99.99% nonsense. Larry David (and the multitude of other people sued in this) would have to have had some non-public information that it was a scam to be at all liable here. If you could sue anyone who advertised a thing that turned out to be crap, no one would advertise anything.And sure, Cryptocurrency is complete horseshit on its own, but there’s pretty much no way that the celebrities hired to promote the exchange were aware of any of the shady-ass shit that was specifically happening at FTX. Remember, the exchange didn’t collapse because Crypto is a horseshit scam, it collapsed because it started gambling with customer funds, lost a lot of money, and had a bank run with nowhere near enough money to cover their funds.If you think Larry David got told “Oh, yeah, we’re doing some insanely stupid, unethical, and illegal crap with the money that people are putting into the exchange” before signing up for the commercial, then you’re as big a fool as a cryptobro….Which probably explains the lawsuit, huh, lots of cryptobros wanting their money back…
Unless the celebrities went to college for Finance (and many never studied post-high school), they’re not savvy enough to have known. Their agents probably told them they had an offer to do a commercial for a crazy amount of money.
Back in the 90s someone in the TV business told me that Christopher Plummer wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $60K. Whenever a celebrity starts talking about doing a project because the script spoke to them or they really believed in the subject, I don’t buy it when there is a lot of money involved.
I mean, just because you won’t do a project if you aren’t paid a certain amount doesn’t mean that you only accepted the job because of the pay. They might just be meaning “Well, yeah, getting paid that much was important, but I picked this specific project instead of the dozen other ones offering a similar amount because of how much the role spoke to me”.
Plus their contracts to do these ads are very explicit that their involvement does not make them officers of the damn company. Otherwise no actor would ever appear in a commercial.
You can absolutely sue people for advertising things that turn out to be crap, if they made a claim the thing was not crap.
Exactly. It’s be like suing the Houston Astros in connection with Enron because that was the name on their stadium. And the Astros have no instances of fraud. Nope. None. Never.
Yes. The real interesting part of this story is who put the money in, who was taking it out, and most of all, where did all of that money end up? I think most of the celebrity endorsers like Brady, Curry, and David put some of their own money in. The investigation will be very interesting.
I suspect the main effect desired is to convince celebrities to not shill, particularly one with no established history.
The law firms (Moskowitz and Boies Schiller) representing the plaintiffs are very high-profile firms, and also have reputations for trying to generate a lot of publicity for their cases. So I suspect they know the claims against the paid endorsers are likely to go nowhere but just wanted to make sure the filings generated substantial buzz. And here we are…
I don’t really know how I feel about this. I mean I don’t know how involved they were besides doing commercials, but as it is, I feel like they’re kind of the three people involved that deserve to be sued the least. Basically I’d rather they go after the scam mobile game rather than the youtuber that makes a sponsored video.
Adding in the celebrities that were in the commercials just seems like a way to get more publicity for the lawsuit. If it was just the guy suing the FTX people, it would only be covered as a footnote, but by adding in a few celebrities it got the news onto entertainment blogs like this one too.
There are few things more fruitless than suing a bankrupt company. Even if you win that’s an unsecured claim, putting you at the very back of the line.
Wait. They being sued because they acted in commercials for the company? How exactly does that make a lick of sense?
Ah, remember when young people said us “old” people weren’t smart enough to understand Crypto and NFT’s and that they were the future. If you got sucked into those things, I don’t feel the least bit sorry for you.Also someone sue Matt Damon as his Crypto commercial wasn’t even funny, like Larry’s was.
I do admit to the Schadenfreude.
Damon’s commercials were basically saying, “If you don’t invest in crypto, you’re a pussy.”
yup, sue that fucker!
Long Shot was one of my favorite documentaries, so whatever gets Larry David Larry Daviding it up in a court room again, I just hope it’s filmed.
I’m shocked because I always go to Larry David for financial device.
He ironically gave good advice in this case.
Technically, Larry was right in the ad about his pessimism regarding FTX’s (and crypto’s in general) feasibility, so there’s nothing to sue about.
The FTX defense all of theses cases will be straight from “Animal House”: “Hey, You fucked up! You trusted us!”
This isn’t about crypto – it looks like straight up investor fraud.
Yeah, crypto is a ponzi scheme, but securities regulators are bending over backwards to regulate these ponzi schemes which should just be illegal. They can still function underground, but then people who somehow don’t know better would be protected in the best possible way, by not participating.
Can we sue Matt Damon for being in an idiotic nothing ad we were forced to sit through at the movies instead?
…no good?
If anyone thinks these lawsuits will not be successful they should be reminded that there is a first time for everything and if there is a first time FTX will be it. They should also be reminded that in civil court it only takes 51% of a jury vote for judgement. Every spokesman for FTX was paid in excess of 10 million dollars with stolen customer money for their role in promoting FTX and they might well be considered part of the team.