By Brian Womack of The Dallas Business Journal
(Aug. 14) – Dallas’ Match Group is having relationship problems.
The company and its parent IAC are being sued by founders of Tinder, along with current executives and early employees, for manipulating financial information, according to a new filing. The lawsuit seeks at least $2 billion.
Tinder, which operates out of Los Angeles, is owned by Match Group.
“(The) defendants’ path to Tinder ‘gold’ was paved with systematic exploitation and greed,” the suit states. “For years, defendants cheated the Tinder plaintiffs out of the credit and value they had earned – culminating in (the) defendants’ scheme to deprive the Tinder plaintiffs of their contractual rights as Tinder option holders.”
IAC didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Match Group is grappling with lawsuits while it seeks to keep its digital properties popular with consumers. Earlier this year, Match Group sued Bumble, a women-centric dating app, for patent infringement and misappropriation of intellectual property. Later on, the Austin-based startup, led by former Tinder exec and co-founder Whitney Wolfe, filed it’s own suit, alleging that Match Group filed its lawsuit with false and disparaging information in order to make Bumble less attractive to potential acquirers.
The Match Group portfolio also includes OkCupid and PlentyOfFish.
In Tinder’s case filed against Match, the plaintiffs also allege that in 2016, former Match chairman and CEO Greg Blatt groped and sexually harassed the vice president of marketing and communications, but that the incident was “covered up” as part of the scheme to deprive the plaintiffs, the case said.
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