Group match rape problem: a trial alleges that the inaction of Tinder and the owner of Hinge allowed the attackers to stay on the applications

But the day before this profit call, a shareholder of the game group named Ned Habedus filed a complaint against the company’s board of directors, notably Rascoff and the former CEO Bernard Kim, who raises questions about the company’s leadership and the council priorities following a bombshell investigation published earlier this year.

This report on the media, “Cover-up of the dating application: how Tinder, Hinge and their business owner keep rape under the Wraps”, by the Pulitzer Center and Calmatters, co-published by The Guardian and the 19th, experienced 18 months of report and is widely extracted in the new trial, which was filed in front of a federal court of California.

Citing the report, the trial alleys that “the group of matches has known … that the users have been reported for drugs, the assault or rape of their dates since 2016, according to documents from the internal company. Since 2019, the Central Database of the Match Group has recorded each user reported for rape and assault in all their suite of applications; say.'”

The match did not respond to FortuneRequest for comments on the new trial. His former CEO Bernhard Kim either. When the investigation was published, the company told the media that it “vigorously fought violence,” said the report. “We will always work to invest and improve our systems, and seek ways to help our users stay safe, both online and when they connect in real life,” Match Group said in a statement at the time. He also said: “We take each misconduct report seriously, and delete and block vigilantly the accounts that violated our rules concerning this behavior.”

However, Match Group has not yet produced a promised report which would give all stakeholders, including customers, a clear meaning of the risks facing users. And some accused delinquents have found ways to stay on the site, allowing them to continue to chase the websites for potential targets – sometimes for months or years – even after their crimes were reported.

The complaint also claims, again quoting the investigation report: “In a particularly scandalous example … The cardiologist Stephen Matthews retained access to match platforms until January 25, 2023, despite a user who reported him for sexual assault on September 28, 2020. Match did not delete his profile until his judgment by the police.” In 2024, Matthews was sentenced by a court of drug colorado 10 women whom he met through Hinge and Tinder meetings, and sexually assaulting eight of them. He was sentenced to 158 years in prison.

An applicant’s lawyer refused to comment and pointed out Fortune to the complaint.

Match Group, a company of $ 8.8 billion, has more than a dozen applications, including Tinder, Hinge, Match, Meetic, Okcupid and a lot of fish. The trial requires damages of managers and members of the board of directors appointed for violation of the fiduciary obligation, violations of the securities law and unjust enrichment. He also calls reforms to corporate governance and risk monitoring, the return of the remuneration of managers and other costs incurred by the company.

This is a derivative trial, in which a shareholder provides complaints against management on behalf of the company. All payments ordered by the court go to the company and the shareholders benefit indirectly. (As a rule, administrators have insurance policies that will cover these payments. If misconduct is not covered by the policies, members of the board of directors are required to cover the costs themselves.)

The Pulitzer Center report opens to a heartbreaking and detailed account of one of the victims of Matthews, who says that when she visited Matthews at her home, he drugged and assaulted her. She was able to escape and enter an Uber, and after the effects of the drug dissipated, she reported that the incident corresponded. At the time of this assault, two other women had already pointed out Matthews on the site, according to the report.

In several cases, the trial compares what the company has disclosed in the securities deposits and during the calls for analysts with what the report of the Pulitzer center alleged that the company already knew. For example, the legal deposit stipulates that the company revealed a decrease in figures for active monthly users for Tinder in November 2024 without disclosing what the applicant alleys was the real reason why the application lost customers: long -term security problems described in the exhibition published a few months later.

“Competition or economic considerations have not resulted in the rapid drop in Tinder Mau,” said the complaint. “It has weakened because users have tired of meeting attackers and predators on the platform.”

“Users have also been frustrated by the failure of the company to reduce this harmful conduct,” he continues, “known to the leadership of the company”.