when Competition Group CEO Spencer Rascoff released its latest earnings this week, one of its flagship dating apps Hinge is “Crush it“As growth accelerates Despite reports That young user is breaking up using a dating app. Revenue rose 25% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, with users flocking to it. Before Struggle So is the spark Show logo turnover. On the same day, Match’s stock exploded 12%.
But the day before the revenue call, a shareholder of the competition group named Ned Habedus filed litigation Opposition to the company’s board, including Rascoff and former CEO Bernard Kim, raised questions about company leadership and board priorities after a bombshell investigation was released earlier this year.
That Media Reports“Dating App Coverage: How Tinder, Hinge and its Company Owners Will Be Raped.” Pulitzer Center and Calmatters, co-published by Guardian and 19th, grew up in an 18-month report and extensively excerpted in a new lawsuit, which has been filed in federal court in California.
The lawsuit cited the report, alleging: “The matching group already knows … which users have reported drugs, attacks or raped at least since 2016. ” said.'”
No response to the game wealthRequest for comments on the new lawsuit. Nor is its former CEO Bernhard Kim. The report said that after the investigation was published, the company told the media it was “strongly cracked down on violence”. “We will always strive to invest and improve our systems and seek ways to help users stay safe when connecting online and in real life,” Match Group said in a statement at the time. It also said: “We take all reports of misconduct seriously and are alert to delete and block accounts that violate our rules for this behavior.”
However, Match Group has not yet submitted a guaranteed report that will give all stakeholders, including customers, a clear understanding of the risks faced by users. Some defendants found ways to stay on the site, allowing them to continue trawling the site to seek potential goals (sometimes months or years), even if the crime was reportedly matched.
The complaint also notes that the investigation report was again cited: “In a particularly outrageous example… Cardiologist Stephen Matthews reported his sexual assault from January 25, 2023 to January 25, 2023 to September 28, 2020. In 2024, Matthews Convicted By a drug court in Colorado, he met 10 women through dating app Hinges and Tinder and sexually assaulted eight of them. He was sentenced to 158 years in prison.
The plaintiff’s attorney declined to comment and pointed out wealth complaint.
Match Group is a $8.8 billion company with more than a dozen applications including Tinder, Hinge, Match, Meetic, Okcupid and a large number of fish. The lawsuit seeks damages from executives and board members for breach of fiduciary obligations, securities laws and unfair liability. It also calls for reforms to corporate governance and risk supervision, administrative wage compensation, and other expenses incurred by the company.
This is a derivative lawsuit in which shareholders represent the company to make claims against leaders. Any payment ordered by the court will be indirectly benefited from the company and shareholders. (Usually, the director’s insurance policy will cover such payments. However, if the misconduct is not covered by the policy, the board members are obliged to pay their own fees.)
The Pulitzer Center report begins with the pain and exhaustive narrative of one of Matthews’ victims, who said he drugged her and beat her when she visited Matthews at home. She was able to escape and enter Uber, and after the effects of the drug disappeared, she reported the event to match it. The report said two other women had reported Matthews to the site at the time of the attack.
In some cases, the lawsuit compared what the company disclosed in its securities application and on its analyst’s phone call, and the Pulitzer Center report alleges that the company already knew. For example, the legal application noted that the company revealed the decline in monthly active users of Tinder in November 2024 without revealing what the plaintiff claimed was the real reason for the app’s loss of customers: security issues in the long-term operation of Exposé released a few months later.
“Competition or economic considerations have not caused Tinder’s MAU to drop rapidly,” the complaint said. “This is because users are tired of abusers and predators on the platform.”
It continues: “Users are frustrated by the company’s failure to cut this evil behavior, which is what the company’s leadership knows.”
