SAN FRANCISCO—The parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Meta Platforms, recently asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the company coordinated with the parent company of OnlyFans.com to blacklist the adult platform’s competitors and brand ambassadors.
Meta and Fenix International Limited, the London-based company that owns OnlyFans.com, have both filed motions for dismissal earlier this month to dismiss the conspiracy lawsuit which was filed on behalf of board members of the Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG). In a recent filing, counsel for Meta asked federal district judge William Alsup to sanction and eject the suit brought by the performers after the plaintiffs disavowed alleged bribes to some senior executives at Meta leading to a conspiracy with Fenix to suppress competition. Counsel points out that the plaintiffs’ disavowal of claims of conspiracy proves they no longer have a viable case against the defendants.
“This court should not permit plaintiffs to breeze into federal court, level incendiary allegations that very senior Meta personnel were bribed by OnlyFans, and then simply say 'oops, never mind' when it is shown that those allegations were false and frivolous from the outset,” reads the filing submitted to the court. “It is now clear that this case should be dismissed immediately. As the court recognized, plaintiffs premised their entire case on the bribery scheme, and their claims against Meta rise and fall on the veracity of their allegations of bribery.” Meta’s arguments to the court reflect a motion to sanction filed by counsel representing Fenix earlier in July 2023.
“This is an alleged bribery case in which there is no evidence of bribery,” reads the filing from counsel for Fenix, in their attempt to add further justification to sanction APAG and get the case dismissed. “When plaintiffs were challenged by this court … 'plead their best case,' [the] plaintiffs acknowledged that they lacked direct evidence of bribery, and instead based their allegations on a single e-mail received through an anonymous tip line, from an unidentified person, with the subject line 'Follow the money,' that purported to show certain wire transfers.”
Counsel for the performers submitted an opposition filing with the court arguing that “Fenix vaguely contends that [the] plaintiffs should not have sued them at all due to insufficiency of evidence. But they offer almost no support for the contention that the case should not have been filed, and Plaintiffs maintain that their supporting declarations and allegations meet” the standards of the court. The filing goes on to assert that the motion from defendants “should be denied in its entirety.” But, the attorneys for the performers also filed a notice of withdrawal to disavow the bribery claims.
APAG brought the lawsuit before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
