Former Tinder Executives Face More Legal Action
Contributed by: kellyseal on Wednesday, October 23 2019 @ 12:26 pm
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Former CEO of Tinder and Match Group Greg Blatt filed a defamation lawsuit this month against Tinder co-founder Sean Rad and former VP of Marketing and Communications Rosette Pambakian.
According to a report by CNN[*1] , Blatt claimed in the lawsuit that Rad offered to pay Pambakian “millions of dollars” to make “false allegations of sexual harassment against Blatt…in a brazen attempt to gain publicity.” He was referring to an earlier sexual harassment lawsuit Pambakian had filed against him, which she alleged took place at a company holiday party.
Blatt also accused Pambakian of engaging in “irreverent and, at times, ribald and suggestive conversation,” and claims they both laughed throughout the holiday party. According to CNN, Blatt’s lawsuit also alleges that Pambakian suggested they and two other Tinder employees go to a hotel room and order food, and while he did not go immediately, he eventually joined. He and Pambakian kissed in the hotel room, and Blatt says this was consensual. He also alleges they were both fully clothed at all times, and after that evening “Pambakian and Blatt never engaged in any further physical encounters.”
Lawyers for Blatt quickly moved to take the complaint into arbitration, because certain employment-related claims previously filed by Pambakian were already in arbitration, according to CNN. However, lawyers for Rad and Pambakian called the move “an abuse of the court system” and “a shameful effort to stage a public smear campaign against a sexual assault accuser under cover of a court proceeding.” Her lawyers filed a motion to dismiss Blatt’s defamation suit.
Blatt’s lawsuit is yet another layer in the ongoing legal battle between Match Group and former employees of its star dating app Tinder. Earlier this year, Rad and Pambakian and a group of former Tinder employees filed a lawsuit against Match Group and its parent company IAC for manipulating the valuation of Tinder to deny them money they were owed, claiming a $2 billion loss in the lawsuit. Also included in that lawsuit was Pambakian’s claim that Blatt had sexually harassed her.
This previous lawsuit against Match Group alleges that Blatt was promoted to Tinder CEO in order to downplay Tinder’s valuation. IAC has claimed this lawsuit as baseless. Pambakian then filed her own lawsuit of wrongful termination and the handling of her complaints by Match Group. (She was allegedly fired the day before her stock options vested.)
The history gets murkier, because Blatt accused Rad of offering Pambakian a payout in exchange for participation in the suit, which Rad and Pambakian deny. Blatt cites messages between he and Pambakian, and claimed that Rad pressured her to join him and other former Tinder employees in their lawsuit.
"That is false," said Orin Snyder, a partner at Gibson Dunn who represents Rad in a statement to CNN. "There were no upfront payments promised for joining the lawsuit. The only payments were triggered by IAC/Match retaliating against plaintiffs by stripping away their hard-earned equity."
Blatt is seeking a minimum of $50 million in damages in his lawsuit.