BuSINESS
D FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2019:: LATIMES.COM/BUSINESS
C
DOW26,201.04▲122.42 S&P5002,910.63 23.02▲▲NASDAQ7,872.26 87.02 GOLD$1,507.10 6.10▲ OIL$52.45 0.19▼ EURO$1.0973▲ .0015 U.S. T-NOTE(10-yr.)1.53% 0.06▼In August, a former vice
president at Tinder filed a
lawsuit alleging that Greg
Blatt, the onetime chief exe-
cutive of Tinder and its par-
ent companies Match
Group and IAC, sexually
harassed and assaulted her
at a company Christmas
party in 2016.
On Thursday, Blatt filed
a defamation suit against his
accuser, Rosette Pam-
bakian, and against Tinder’s
co-founder and former CEO
Sean Rad, alleging that the
sexual battery accusations
are part of a smear cam-
paign designed to give Rad
and Pambakian leverage in a
separate multibillion-dollar
legal battle over the value of
Tinder stock.
“Rad and Pambakian
have attempted to weap-
onize an important social
movement,” the defamation
suit alleges, “undermining
the plight of true victims of
sexual abuse by making
false accusations in cynical
pursuit of a $2 billion wind-
fall.”
Orin Snyder, an attorney
for Pambakian and Rad,
called Blatt’s suit “a new low
for IAC/Match and their for-
mer CEO. They continue to
retaliate against and smear
a victim of sexual assault
and the person who re-
ported it. Their attacks are
based on lies and docu-
ments that are taken out of
context. When all of the evi-
dence comes to light, it will
be obvious what happened
here. It’s shameful that
these public companies are
continuing to cover up the
truth.”
A spokeswoman for
Match Group said neither
the company nor its parent
is a party to Blatt’s suit.
Pambakian’s August suit
painted a picture of a drunk-
en Blatt making unwanted
advances over the course of
the party at the SLS Hotel in
Beverly Hills, culminating in
an incident in a hotel room,
with other Tinder employ-
ees present, in which BlattTinder
ex-CEO
files suit
against
accuser
Greg Blatt says the
woman’s allegation of
sex assault is a smear
effort in a separate
stock value dispute.
By Sam Dean[SeeTinder, C4]Facebook Inc. can be
forced to remove posts any-
where in the world to protect
European Union users from
hateful content, the bloc’s
highest court ruled in a case
that widens a chasm with
the U.S. on freedom of
speech and privacy.
European courts can
force platforms such as the
social network giant to seek
and destroy such content
once they’ve been alerted,
the EU judges said in a bind-
ing decision Thursday.
Courts can also order a
worldwide removal as long
as they take international
law into account when they
issue the edicts, the judges
said.
“Today’s ruling essen-
tially allows one country or
region to decide what inter-
net users around the world
can say and what informa-
tion they can access,” said
Victoria de Posson, senior
manager in Europe at the
Computer & Communica-
tions Industry Assn., an in-
dustry group that includes
Alphabet Inc.’s Google and
Facebook as members.
The EU has taken a
tougher stance on citizens’
online rights than elsewhere
in the world. In 2014, the EU’sFacebook faces
wider EU rules
on hateful posts
FACEBOOKsaid the EU court’s ruling “undermines the long-standing principle that one country does not
have the right to impose its laws on speech on another country.” Above, the court’s offices in Luxembourg.Arne Immanuel B’nschAP Images[SeeFacebook,C4]European courts can
force social networks
to cut such content,
sometimes worldwide,
judges for the bloc say.
bloomberg
Brian Mark-
ley is 92. He
lives in a
retirement
home in
Huntington
Beach. He
could win
$10,000 a
week for an
entire year.
At least that’s what the
letter he recently received
from National Magazine
Exchange would have him
believe.
“What do you think?”
Markley asked me. “Do you
think it’s a scam?”
My first thought was yes,
of course it’s a scam. Ac-
cording to the Federal
Trade Commission, Ameri-
cans lost $10.4 million last
year to sweepstakes and
lottery rackets.
But I decided to do a
little digging. What I found
was a Florida company that
uses cutting-edge technol-
ogy and hard-sell tactics to
badger people into maga-
zine purchases. Seniors are
frequently the target of such
efforts, according to the
FTC.
“Sweepstakes scams
continue to top the list of
reported scams to our
Fraud Watch Network help
line,” said Kathy Stokes,
director of fraud prevention
programs for AARP.
“The losses can be sig-
nificant,” she said. “And it
can be a long con, with the
scammer continually mak-
ing excuses for why they
need the target to send
more money.”
I found no evidence that
the company’s sweepstakes
is bogus. For what it’s
worth, there’s a web page
listing past winners.
But everything else
about this thing stinks.
The sweepstakes ap-
pears to be little more than
an inducement for getting
people to call in. Once they
do, the rough stuff begins.
The letter Markley re-
ceived contained an “entry
authorization number” that
entitles him to participate
in a sweepstakes that the
letter says will result in a
$520,000 cash prize for one
lucky winner.
The catch is that he has
to call National Magazine
Exchange to verify his
sweepstakes number and
Dave,
I’m
afraid
I can’t
hang up
DAVID LAZARUS
[SeeLazarus,C4]SAN BENITO, Texas — On a recent
day in a remodeled brick church in the
Rio Grande Valley, a caregiver tried to
soothe a toddler, offering him a sippy
cup. The adult knew next to nothing
about the little 3-year-old whose few
baby words appeared to be Portuguese.
Shelter staff had tried desperately to
find his family, calling the Brazilian con-
sulate and searching Facebook.
Nearby, infants in strollers were
rolled through the building, pushed by
workers in bright blue shirts lettered
“CHS,” short for Comprehensive
Health Services Inc., the private, for-
profit company paid by the U.S. govern-
ment to hold some of the smallest mi-
grant children.
Sheltering migrant children has be-
come a growing business for the Flor-
ida-based government contractor.
More than 50 babies, toddlers and teens
were closely watched on this day inside
this clean, well-lit shelter surrounded
by chain-link fences.
A joint investigation by the Associ-
ated Press and the PBS news program
“Frontline” has found that the Trump
administra-THE TRUMP administration has begun shifting care of migrant children from mostly religious non-
profits to for-profit contractors. Above, a Comprehensive Health Services facility in San Benito, Texas.Photographs by Eric GayAssociated PressU.S. privatizing care
of migrant children
The number in custody has fallen, but funds keep flowing
IN JUNE,CHS held more than 20% of the migrant children who
are in government custody. It currently operates six shelters.By Garance Burke
and Martha Mendoza[SeeChildren,C6]