Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary is no longer facing a fraud lawsuit filed against him last year. On Feb. 10, a judge granted his legal team’s motion to have him dismissed from the case, and they argued the lawsuit should never have been filed against him in the first place. In the lawsuit, a group of 20 entrepreneurs accused O’Leary and others of allegedly encouraging them to use crowdfunding to start their business ideas, reports TMZ. However, the plaintiffs claimed the strategies did not work and they ended up losing money.
O’Leary’s attorneys Paul Sorrell and Andrew Bettler told TMZ the judge agreed to dismiss the ABC star from the lawsuit because the court did not believe O’Leary’s general comments about crowdsourcing were enough to hold him accountable. Although the crowdsourcing did not work for these entrepreneurs, it was not O’Leary’s fault. The case will still continue, just without O’Leary included among the defendants.
Videos by PopCulture.com
“Mr. O’Leary should have never been named in this suit,” Sorrell told Page Six. “The lawsuit had no merit and he was named just to give it some celebrity notoriety, and obviously we are pleased that the judge agreed with that.”
Tre Lovell, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, told Page Six they planned to appeal. “The victims adamantly believe that due to the massive influence of celebrity endorsements on innocent consumers, there should be an accordant legal responsibility tied to such statements,” Lovell said. “Celebrity endorsements have become a lucrative cottage industry, and along with the financial benefits that accompany them so does the burden of ensuring that one’s name and brand aren’t being used to perpetrate a scam.”
The lawsuit was filed in September 2021, and also included O’Leary’s Shark Tank co-star Kevin Harrington among the defendants, TMZ reported at the time. According to the lawsuit, the entrepreneurs hired two companies to oversee their crowdfunding efforts. The plaintiffs claimed once they used the companies O’Leary and Harrington endorsed, they didn’t see anything in return. They even claimed the two crowdfunding companies might not exist and the whole plot was a “predatory fraud scheme.”
“It appears that someone has been using my name and likeness without my knowledge, permission, or consent. I’ve never heard of any of these purported companies and have never conducted business with any of the plaintiffs who filed this suit,” Bettler told TMZ in September. “Obviously, I want to get to the bottom of it too, as my rights have been violated. We will make sure that the bad actors are held accountable.”
