Kim Kardashian’s legal team has filed a motion to vacate a class action lawsuit directed at the businesswoman and other American celebrities.
Kardashian and a handful of other prominent American social media influencers were served with a class action lawsuit in January 2022 over claims that they misled investors through social media promotion of a cryptocurrency called EthereumMax (EMAX).
Kardashian posted Instagram stories promoting the project in June 2021, and boxing great Floyd Mayweather was also swept up in the lawsuit after promoting the Ethereum-based token in preparation for a celebrity boxing match against YouTuber Logan Paul during the same period.
Fans could buy pay-per-view tickets with the token, which skyrocketed following the hype from Kardashian and other influencers. The value of EthereumMax dropped significantly afterward, leaving many penniless.
The original court deposition that included Kardashian, Mayweather, and eight others claimed that company executives had collaborated with celebrity promoters to make misleading statements about the token and their control of most of the tokens. Steve Gentile and Giovanni Perone were listed as co-founders of the project.
Kardashian’s legal team argued for the dismissal of the class action lawsuit in court documents reviewed by Cointelegraph, countering all 10 claims filed against the influencer. One key takeaway was the Kardashian Instagram stories in question:
“Crucially, neither named plaintiff alleges that they actually viewed either Instagram post prior to purchasing tokens during the relevant time period.”
The lawsuit also argued that the plaintiffs’ claims that the influencers were paid in Ether (ETH) to promote EMAX were baseless, given their lack of evidence that Kardashian had received financial compensation for her Instagram posts.
Kardashian’s legal team also noted that there was no evidence that Kardashian had bought, received or sold the tokens. The defendants have filed a blanket motion to dismiss the class action lawsuits.
As Kardashian backs away from his involvement in the EthereumMax debacle, this is the latest instance in which Mayweather has been involved in promoting a shady cryptocurrency project.
The boxer has already escaped a lawsuit after promoting the fraudulent Centra Tech initial coin offering in 2017 alongside American music producer DJ Khaled. The pair got off the hook after a judge ruled that investors were unable to prove they had purchased tokens due to promotional efforts by Mayweather and Khaled.
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