Last Updated on September 11, 2023 by Bitfinsider

According to court filings in its ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, FTX paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in high-profile marketing and endorsement deals to celebrities including as Shaquille O’Neal, Naomi Osaka, and David Ortiz, among others.

FTX’s current management published a complete list of celebrities, businesses, and sports teams that received payments as part of its marketing blitz in a court file made to the United States Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

The company recognised that the list “may not reflect an exhaustive list of all deposits and repayments,” but stated that it is attempting to identify any outstanding payments made in previous years in order to determine how much of this can be clawed back to settle its debts.

The list covers payments made to various celebrities who were widely featured as FTX promoters before the company went bankrupt.

According to the petition, FTX paid approximately $750,000 to former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, approximately $308,000 to tennis star Naomi Osaka, approximately $206,000 to Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, and approximately $271,000 to former Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz.

Some of these celebrities had already been sued by FTX creditors for their endorsement of the company, which crashed last November. O’Neal and Osaka were named in a class-action lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida in May, accusing them of fraudulently advertising interest-bearing accounts that were actually unregistered securities.