Steven Seagal, actor best known for playing tough cops and commandos in action movies, has agreed to settle charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to disclose that he was paid to promote an investment in cryptocurrency on their social media accounts.
The second. said Thursday that Seagal, who lives in Moscow and holds both Russian and American citizenship, was promised $ 250,000 in cash and $ 750,000 in cryptocurrency from the company Bitcoiin2Gen in exchange for approval of its initial offer of coins, a crowdfunding strategy which consists in creating and selling virtual currency.
In 2018, Mr. Seagal’s Facebook and Twitter accounts posted several times on the supply of coins, calling him “the company’s global ambassador,” the S.E.C. told me. The posts did not reveal that Mr. Seagal, 67, was paid for promotions. The second. said Mr. Seagal, who is also a trained martial artist, had 6.7 million Facebook followers during the time he posted on the cryptocurrency company.
The second. noted that Mr. Seagal’s publications on the supply of coins came more than six months after the commission announced its decision that initial coin offers – like initial stock offerings – can be considered to be securities sales and are subject to federal securities laws. The anti-buy-back provisions of these laws require individuals to disclose the amount of compensation they will receive in exchange for promoting a guarantee.
Seagal spokesman Christopher Nassif said in a statement on Thursday that the actor had signed an agreement authorizing those associated with Bitcoiin2Gen to post on his social media accounts about cryptocurrency, but that Mr. Seagal eventually became “concerned about the good faith of the product” and terminated his relationship with the business. He was paid only part of the agreed fees.
Mr. Seagal has agreed to settle the charges by reimbursing this part of the costs, $ 157,000, as well as a civil fine of the same amount, the commission said. He also agreed to refrain from promoting any title for three years.
Mr. Nassif said that Mr. Seagal considered the agreement “simply the case of a person paying a celebrity for using his image to promote a product”, and that he had fully cooperated in the investigation of the DRY
During his acting career, Mr. Seagal’s parties have often highlighted his physical prowess, as a firefighter for an oil company in “On Deadly Ground” (1994), and a former CIA officer who became a police officer in ” The Glimmer Man ”(1996). In 2018, however, before he started promoting cryptocurrency, Mr. Seagal accepted a very different role, this time from the Russian government: special representative to improve relations with the United States. (Russian officials said the position was unpaid.)
With the S.E.C. agreement in place, Mr. Nassif said that Mr. Seagal “looks forward to continuing the work of his life as an actor, musician, martial artist and diplomat”.