KEY POINTS
- Gronk has agreed to pay for majority of a $2.4 million settlement with former customers of Voyager
- Gronkowski became a brand ambassador of Voyager Digital in September 2021
- Voyager filed for bankruptcy in mid-2022 after being exposed to another collapsed crypto firm, 3AC
Four-time Super Bowl champion Rob "Gronk" Gronkowski, who was named a defendant in a lawsuit lodged by former customers of collapsed cryptocurrency lender Voyager Digital, has settled with the plaintiffs for nearly $2 million, court documents revealed.
Recent court documents that the crypto community picked up Tuesday showed that Gronkowski, along with NBA player Victor Oladipo and racecar driver Landon Cassill, have settled with the plaintiffs and are expected "to provide collectively $2,425,000 in monetary relief."
An accompanying exhibit to the court documents revealed that Gronkowski will pay $1.9 million to settle with the investors who sued him and several other sports figures, including co-defendants Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks. Oladipo will pay $500,000 for the settlement, and Cassill will pay the smallest sum of $25,000 to settle the claims. The court still needs to approve the proposed settlement payments.
The court documents noted that the collapse of Voyager "resulted in over $3 billion dollars in losses" to investors. Plaintiffs worked "tirelessly" for two years to help retrieve the losses by going after athletes who promoted the fallen crypto lender.
Cuban, who was the former principal owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was first sued in 2022 for his alleged hyping up of the collapsed lender's Earn Program Accounts (EPAs), which were found to be "unregistered securities."
Gronkowski, a former superstar in the National Football League (NFL), was issued a subpoena by the plaintiffs late in 2022, with the subpoena targeting his brand ambassador deal with Voyager in September 2021.
The plaintiffs then moved to hold the NBA accountable for its alleged gross negligence in relation to its marketing partnership with Voyager. They filed a complaint earlier this year, saying the NBA's "widespread promotion of Voyager's unregistered securities renders it liable for any and all resulting damages."
Voyager filed for bankruptcy in 2022 days after it imploded due to exposure to defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued the lender and its CEO Stephen Ehrlich in October 2023 for failing to register its products and other fraud-related charges following a probe into the bankrupt firm.
During the derivatives regulator's investigation into Voyager, Ehrlich said the allegations against him and the defunct crypto lending firm "appear to be one of those times where the referees are making new rules and calling foul after the game has ended." He also said he was looking forward "to being vindicated in court."
