Match To Pay Tinder $441 Mln To Settle Lawsuit

(RTTNews) - Match Group Inc. (MTCH) said on Wednesday it would be paying the founders of Tinder a sum of $441 million to settle a case in which the latter's executives claimed that Match Group had lowballed the app's value to avoid paying billions of dollars. The lawsuit filed in the New York Supreme Court said that IAC/InterActiveCorp and its subsidiary, Match, had knowingly prevented the plaintiffs like Sean Rad, Justin Mateen and Jonathan Badeen, from cashing in on their stock options, which they could sell to the IAC.

In 2014, as part of their compensation, the plaintiffs were given stock options in Tinder. However, as Tinder is a private company, the plaintiffs could not exercise their options and sell the shares in the open market.

The plaintiffs were given a second alternative of selling only to the IAC and Match on certain dates on which the stock options can easily be studied upon later.

The lawsuit claims that IAC and Match were merged into Tinder without the consent of Tinder's board of directors. Any further date for exercising the stock options was also ruled out.

Tinder is one of Match Group's fastest growing brands, which benefited a lot from the pandemic as many clients used the application.