Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban will be deposed soon as part of an ongoing lawsuit against him by disgruntled customers of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager. On Jan. 6, U.S. magistrate judge Lisette M. Reid denied Cuban’s request to split his deposition into two parts. Judge Reid of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida ordered that Cuban’s deposition will not be limited to jurisdictional issues.
As part of the defense, Dallas Mavericks employees Ryan Mackey and Kyle Tapply will be deposed by Feb. 23, Reid ordered. The discovery evidence related to Mackey and Tapply has to be handed over to the plaintiffs by the end of January, the court order added. Furthermore, the judge ordered the deposition of three Florida-based Plaintiffs to be held by Jan. 24. According to the order, plaintiffs Pierce Robertson will be deposed this week, Rachel Gold will be deposed on Jan. 23, and Sanford Gold will be deposed on Jan. 23, or 24.
Additionally, a non-party Eric Rares will also be deposed by Jan 23 or 24, the court order said. The judge also ordered the plaintiffs to produce all evidence regarding their Voyager accounts and related documents by Jan. 13.
The plaintiff’s counsel was glad that the court shut down Cuban’s “attempts to stay and delay discovery.”
Five Year Partnership
Cuban’s basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, also entered a five-year partnership with the now-bankrupt crypto exchange. At one point, the the team ran a promotion wherein Mavericks fans would receive $100 worth of Bitcoin if they deposited $100 into Voyager.
“The Deceptive Voyager Platform … was an unregulated and unsustainable fraud, similar to other Ponzi schemes,” the class action complaint reads. “Defendants Mark Cuban and Stephen Ehrlich were key players who personally reached out to investors, individually and through the Dallas Mavericks, to induce them to invest in the Deceptive Voyager Platform.”
After Terra’s collapse, Voyager was one of several lenders that were affected by subsequent liquidity issues, eventually leading to the firm filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July last year.Then at the end of Q3, 2022, FTX.US won the bid to scoop up Voyager’s remaining assets for $1.4 billion. The deal fell through after FTX spectacularly collapsed a fortnight later.
Voyager reopened the bidding process in November. This time Binance.US emerged as “the best and highest bid” at just over $1 billion. Last week former crypto hedge fund Alameda, the now-defunct sister company of FTX, dubbed Binance.US’s acquisition bid as “patently unconfirmable” and said the deal “ignores fundamental requirements and protections of the Bankruptcy Code” in a legal filing.
