Match Investors Want Class Status in Fake Dating Profiles Case

Match Group Inc. investors who say the company misled them about fake dating profiles and user retention asked a federal judge in Texas for permission to move forward with their securities suit as a class.

The case is a “quintessential securities fraud class action,” investors in the company behind online dating services including Match.com, Tinder, and OkCupid said in a memo filed in support of their class certification motion in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Investors asked Judge Karen Gren Scholer to certify a class consisting of everyone who acquired Match common stock from Nov. 6, 2018, through and including Jan. 31, 2020. Scholer in November 2021 rejected the company’s motion to throw out the latest investor complaint.

Scholer should “expeditiously” grant certification, “particularly given the length of time that this lawsuit has been pending without any relief to Class members who suffered losses,” according to the investor memo. The investors sued in 2019.

“Numerosity is a proverbial slam dunk in securities class action lawsuits involving publicly traded stocks,” the Thursday memo said. There are likely “at least thousands of geographically dispersed members” in the proposed class, and Match had “an average weekly trading volume of 9.7 million shares” during the class period.

“Common questions are easily identified” and predominate over individual issues, the investors said. The lead plaintiff—individual investor Samir Ali Cherif Benouis—is “entirely typical” of the proposed class, and with the help of co-lead counsel Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP and Pomerantz LLP has “zealously and successfully prosecuted the claims at issue past multiple amendments and dispositive motions and into discovery.”

The investors also asked Scholer to appoint the lead plaintiff as class representative and the two firms as co-class counsel.

Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP represents Match.

The case is Crutchfield v. Match Grp. Inc., N.D. Tex., No. 3:19-cv-02356, class certification memo filed 2/24/22.